Yotsuba Tatsuya: A Different Beginning
by Tsuyoru Tatsuya
Summary: Tatsuya's heritage and the true nature of his magic are revealed before the choosing of the next clan head. What difference could it make in the long run? Tatsuya/Harem. Godsuya. First 5 chapters are a bit dull, picks up after chapter 6.
1. The Nightmare of 2062

**Chapter 1:- The Nightmare of 2062**

 **[Year 2062]**

The World War III was coming to an end.

The Yotsuba Clan was one of the Ten Master Clans in Japan. For anyone who didn't know about the Yotsuba clan, with the number four in their name, was, even at that time, one of the most powerful clans of the Ten Master Clans and 18 assistant houses. At that era, the head of the Yotsuba clan was Yotsuba Genzou and the father of twins Yotsuba Miya, the older twin and Yotsuba Maya, the younger one.

During World War III, Dahan was quickly able to break away and establish itself as an independent nation. Also, the Kunlunfang Institute, which was a major source of modern magic research on the Continent, became attached to Dahan when it became an independent nation and became the nucleus of Dahan's military power. For that reason, Dahan could oppose the Great Asian Alliance despite its inferior material resources. Japan and Dahan, although not formal allies, had shared a common enemy in the Great Asian Alliance and decided to co-operate militarily.

However, a tragic event happened during that year, Yotsuba Maya, who was 12 at that time, was kidnapped by Dahan. She was used as a human guinea pig for magician manufacturing experimentation.

After she was rescued, Yotsuba Genzou ordered Yotsuba Miya to use her unique magic on Maya to separate the emotions from the memories of the atrocities she had suffered through, for fear that they would destroy her. But Miya was unable to only target the specific memories of her sister and ended up removing the emotions from all of the memories she had experienced for the past twelve years. After waking up, Maya blamed Miya for what she had done, saying that she had "killed" the person she was before, and her personality changed. Now Maya had been left with her body broken and unable to bear children.

In return, the Yotsuba clan decided to avenge their kin by eliminating everyone connected with the Institute. Yotsuba Genzou with the support of 30 Yotsuba Clan members.

The Yotsuba began their massacre from where this all started. A research laboratory placed in Quanzhou that is a subdivision of the Kunlunfang Institute. After the slaughter of every person inside the institute, they proceeded to destroy all the research inside the lab. During this Genzou was surprised to find a few preserved eggs of Maya. He ordered his brother Eisaku to take them back to Japan and to find a person with suitable genes for Maya's offspring. Then Genzou and his 29 other comrades proceeded to Destroy Dahan.

For the sacrifice of a mere thirty people, the Yotsuba clan assassinated more than four thousand: cabinet ministers, high class bureaucrats, officers, magicians and researchers; as for the Continent of China, it had all its research-results on modern magic annihilated. Due to this damage, Dahan suffered an internal collapse after half year and the Great Asian Alliance unified the continent of Asia at the end of The World War III.

That year known as ' ** _The_** ** _Nightmare of 2062_** ', and among those who knew the truth about the collapse of Dahan, the Yotsuba were feared as the ' ** _Untouchables_** '.


	2. The Gathering

**The Gathering**

 **36 Years Later [** **AD2096]…**

After losing half of their combat force, including their clan head Yotsuba Genzou, the Yotsuba became a secretive clan for the need of protecting the rest of the members of the clan, and due to the extreme secrecy surrounding the Yotsuba Clan, the general public didn't know about the magicians connected to the Yotsuba Clan. Currently, the only publicly known magician from the Yotsuba Clan is the current head of the Yotsuba Clan; Yotsuba Maya.

Even though the Yotsuba family lost half of its combat force, the Yotsuba family is still one of the two most powerful families in the Ten Master Clans alongside the Saegusa family. Yotsuba Maya, the current head of the Yotsuba family, is considered one of, if not the most powerful magician in the world who possess a Magic which couldn't be defended against called 'Meteor Stream', earning her the names 'Demon Lady of the Far East' and 'Queen of Night'. She is so fearsome that even other members of the Yotsuba are terrified of her.

In the Yotsuba, each individual possessed an unique inherited ability which varied between two types. Some would have calculation area that was warped by a strong power. For example, Yotsuba Maya possessed a specialized/unique magic called Meteor Stream. For others, they would have some form of Mental Interference Magic ability unique for them that couldn't be classified within Systematic Magic. For example, Yotsuba Miya possessed a forbidden Outer-Systematic magic called Mental Design Interference.

The branch houses of the Yotsuba family are:

Shiiba Family : Shiiba Hidetsugu (Branch House Head).

Kuroba Family : Kuroba Juuzou (Former Branch House Head), Kuroba Mitsugu (Branch House Head), Kuroba Fumiya (Candidate), Kuroba Ayako (Fumiya's twin-sister).

Shizuka Family: Shizuka Haruto (Branch House Head).

Shibata Family: Shibata Osamu (Branch House Head), Shibata Katsushige (Candidate).

Mugura Family : Mugura Asumi (Branch House Head).

Tsukuba Family: Tsukuba Touka (Branch House Head), Tsukuba Yuuka (Candidate).

Mashiba Fsmily: Mashiba Shinsuke (Branch House Head).

Shiba Family* : Shiba Miya (Yotsuba Miya), Shiba Miyuki (Candidate).

In reality, Shiba family was not officially a part of the Yotsuba clan since it consists of only 2 people, however, they considered as branch family for the sake of Yotsuba Miya (Shiba Miya).*

Shiba Tatsuya was the oldest son of Yotsuba Miya (Shiba Miya). He was eleven months older than his younger and only sibling Miyuki. Before his birth, the whole Yotsuba clan was praying for him since he was a fetus to have a superpower and be a powerful leader who could protect their future generations from this unjust world. The day he was born, the whole Yotsuba Clan was waiting for the report about the newborn Tatsuya from the head of the Yotsuba family, Yotsuba Eisaku. Eisaku possessed an innate magic which allowed him to check the potential of the newborn by looking at the Magic Calculation Area (MCA) of the newborn and thus would know with what kind of magic Tatsuya was born with. Usually Yotsuba Eisaku needed only a half an hour to finish looking at the MCA of the newborn, to report the potential of the newborn to the Branch House Heads of the Yotsuba Clan after only an hour after childbirth. But this time the main house didn't report to the branch houses about any information about Tatsuya's potential, only that Tatsuya was born. The next day, the main house of the Yotsuba family reported to the branch houses that 'Shiba Tatsuya is Born-Specialized Magician, his Magic Calculation Area is dominated by a magic, rendering him unable to wield other types of Systematic Magic. His magic power is called 'Restoration' by reading the structural information of any object up to specific time in the past with his Restoration magic he can restore anything to its original state, for this reason Tatsuya has been ousted of his position as the next clan head of the Yotsuba Clan and asking the branch houses to find a candidate from each family and the one with greatest potential will be the next clan head'. With that report the hopes of the Yotsuba Clan members were completely crushed.

When Tatsuya was 6 years old, he had finished his training with the guardians of the main house under the supervision of his mentor Kuroba Juuzou, who was one of two survivors of the war against Dahan alongside Yotsuba Eisaku (Died when tatsuya is 2), the clan head at that time, Yotsuba Maya, appointed him as Miyuki's Guardian. The branch house's heads were not satisfied with the decision, some for the reason that Tatsuya couldn't possess magic to protect Miyuki and some other still can't understand why he is a guardian. However, Maya said that it was Miya who requested Tatsuya to be a Miyuki's Guardian and after Tatsuya agreement, she approved the decision and she will not accept any objection. None of the branch head houses tried to resist in fear incurred the wrath of Yotsuba Maya.

In December of 2096, branch families of the Yotsuba Clan received an envelope from the main house. Within the envelope there was an invitation for a new year's Yotsuba Clan gathering, however, unlike previous year they specially added "Everybody must attend" on the invitation. Everybody from the Yotsuba Clan understands that "the time has come" to decide the next head for Yotsuba Clan.

The candidates were:

Shiba Miyuki:

Miyuki was the younger sister of Tatsuya, unlike her brother, who was technically demoted from being a heir, she is now the number one potential successor. Miyuki's innate ability is Outer-Systematic Mental interference called Cocytus.

Kuroba Fumiya:

Fumiya is the Kuroba family candidate to be Maya's Successor. As one of the candidates for the Yotsuba heir, Fumiya was both skillful and powerful. Like Miyuki he was born with an innate ability which has the trait of unique Outer-Systematic Magic called "Direct Pain".

Shibata Katsushige:

Katsushige was born with an innate ability which was Specialized/Unique magic known as 'Density Control' – His signature magic allowed him to freely manipulate the density of gas, liquid and bodies.

Tsukuba Yuuka:

Yuuka is a rare magician who specializes in Outer-Systematic Type and unlike Shiba Miyuki who specialized in high class spell, she is more of a generalist.

On December 30th, 2096, a day before the new year gathering at the mansion of the main house, Yotsuba Maya was lost in deep thought for a while, after sipping tea from her cup she picked up the buzzer on the table.

The faint chime of a handbell rang out, not a minute later a soft knock rang from the door.

"Did you call for me ?"

Hayama had formerly served the previous Yotsuba Head and was now continuing his service under Maya. While he only appeared slightly past middle age, he was actually over 70 years old.

"Hayama-san, please inform the Tatsuya-san, the candidates and Ayako-san and that they have been invited for dinner with me"

"Certainly"

Hayama bowed, then left the room as he carried out Maya's instructions.

On the night of December 30th,2096, Shiba Miyuki, Shiba Tatsuya, Kuroba Fumiya, Kuroba Ayako, Shibata Katsushige and Tsukuba Yuuka were sitting at table that had been prepared in the traditional Japanese way with Yotsuba Maya at the head of the table with Katsushige, Fumiya and Ayako on the right side of the table, and on the left side of table were Miyuki, Tatsuya and Yuuka.

"I am glad that every one of you is here."

Maya said those words in a tone indiscernible from her true feelings or a simple façade.

"Thank you very much for the invitation, Oba-sama."

Miyuki responsed to her aunt's words with a respectful bow of her head, the rest did the same by bowing their head in thanks for the invitation.

"It's fine, since this meeting is very important for the future of the Yotsuba Clan, because I will decide who will be the elected successor for the next clan head by the end of our meeting. The official announcement will be done tomorrow during the family gathering, but I will tell all of you beforehand about my decision."

"We can continue our conversation while we are eating"

As Maya gives the permission for the rest to start eating, they start eating while waiting for Maya to start the conversation. Even though four of the six were candidates to be Maya's successor but they still couldn't hold themselves in front someone as fearsome like her. Not only them but even the rest of the Yotsuba Clan members were terrified of her to degree that it was impossible to hold a casual conversation with her.

"Yuuka-san I really feel relief that you were able to flee from the organization that has been trying to captured you for some time now."

"My apologies for making you worry."

Yuuka answered Maya with bowing her head.

Maya nodded leisurely at Yuuka's posture.

"Though the first time you were able to flee without facing them in a direct fight but it seems that this time it was very difficult for you, you incurred harm and your guardian was killed in the confrontation"

A few days ago, on December 24th, Yuuka and her guardian were on their way to the main house of the Yotsuba Clan, when an International Criminal organization attacked Yuuka and her guardian to capture Yuuka alive for her genes, which had a high affinity for Mental Interference Magic. This forced Yuuka retreat to Tokyo, after suffering injuries and getting her guardian killed in the confrontation.

Glancing at Yuuka's anxious face, Maya said, "Don't bother yourself by thinking about them because they have been taken care of."

"Thank you very much."

Again Yuuka bowed her head deeply in thankfulness.

"You don't have to thank me since I am not the one who did that."

Maya said that with a charming smile, the candidates and Ayako were not only surprised by Maya's response but also the way she smiled.

Until now, Miyuki had respectfully maintained her position as a listener, but at this time …

A soft knock rang from the door, interrupting Miyuki's intention ro ask a question.

It was the head butler Hayama, after bowing deeply, he muttered in Maya's ear, Maya smiled.

Nobody present over there understood why she smiled, or the intention behind her smile.

"Yuuka-san"

"Yes."

Being spoken to suddenly, she involuntarily answered in reflex while still being puzzled.

"Would you like to know who took your revenge for you?"

"I would like to know that to be able to properly thank him Obaa-sama."

A frustrated groan came from besides Miyuki. Everyone turned to look at Tatsuya.

"Show us the video Hayama-san"

Maya ordered Hayama

"There is no need to do that oba-ue"

Maya suddenly turned to Tatsuya and gave him a big smile full of pride and motherly love. Hayama and Tatsuya let out a deep sigh at this. Maya reserved this smile for only one person in the world. And that person was...

"Of course there is. You are my cute little son after all, everyone should know how great you are"

...Her Cute Little Son.

\--

 **The whole series before this point follows the light novels(except for the battle of Okinawa, which will be explained in the upcoming chapters) that is the reason for skipping directly to 2096 december and not the spring of 2095.**


	3. Cleansing of the Equilibrium

**Cleansing of the Equilibrium**

The candidates and Ayako were beyond shocked. Yotsuba Maya, a person who was thought to be infertile, had just proclaimed Tatsuya to be her son. They were completely speechless.

Little did they know that this news was just the tip of the iceberg. The meeting held many more surprises for them.

"We should move to the solarium for further discussions"

With these words, Maya got up frpm her seat and everyone else followed behind her, thinking about how could Tatsuya be her son.

"Hayama-san, is it ready?"

"Yes milady"

"Please Let us watch it, and bring some tea for me and my guests"

"Certainly"

Everyone except Tatsuya turned their sight to the display screen.

In the screen Tatsuya was showed standing on the highest building in the city.

By looking carefully you can see him wearing a black jacket, black sunglasses and black gloves.

At that time, Hayama brought some tea for everyone .

"Tatsuya-sama, would you like some coffee?"

"Please"

Tatsuya answered was very short and simple.

Hayama knows very well that Tatsuya prefers the black coffee over the tea, so he asked Tatsuya if he wants to drink a black coffee instead of a tea as Maya instructed him.

Anyway, the candidates and Ayako were shocked for calling Tatsuya as Tatsuya – "sama" instead of calling him Tatsuya – "dono" like always Hayama do.

Moreover, Hayama has just disobeyed a direct order from his mistress by asking him whether he prefers to drink a coffee instead of a tea, the most stunning was Maya's behavior in their point of you, she simply ignored what happened and kept her sight on the display screen like nothing happened. It was further evidence that he was Maya's son.

Honestly the people who were there were amazed Maya's behavior. Yuuka and Katsushige even more than Miyuki, Fumiya and Ayako however that didn't change the fact they were still shocked.

While Tatsuya has the same features as before, relaxed without showing any kind of reaction for the situation.

After sipping a coffee of his cup, he returned it to its saucer.

"Tatsuya-sama, we apology for making you wait, we are ready now!"

That voice came from the display screen this time, and also refers to Tatsuya as Tatsuya – "sama" instead of Tatsuya – "dono",

however this time no one gave any reaction.

"It is fine, more importantly, why is there a camera here?"

Even though Tatsuya didn't appear to be angry, when those words left Tatsuya's mouth the servant who was talking to Tatsuya tensed.

He didn't become tense because Tatsuya will get angry over him or out of fear, because he inwardly knew that Tatsuya will not harm him for following an order.

However, he can't sweep out the tension inside him, because he knew Tatsuya will refuse whatever he plans to do now.

"It was a direct order from the Toushu-sama to record Tatsuya-sama's mission, please consider that Maya-sama has promised that she will punish us if Tatsuya-sama breaks the camera, or refuses the mission to be recorded"

The servant answered Tatsuya without holding even one thing.

"In other words, even if I break the camera or refuse the mission to be recorded, you are the one who will be punished not me"

Tatsuya concluded the servant's words in easier explanation, or you can say he knew how Maya was thinking.

The servant merely nodded hoping that Tatsuya will not refuse the request.

Tatsuya looks towards the city from above the highest building present over there.

"I always believe that no matter what area human excels in, they still can't be called a perfect in it. But when it comes to her as a leader, I start doubt my beliefs"

Tatsuya exhaled weakly and muttered those words.

Tatsuya understands that Maya did that on propose,

Knowing Tatsuya will break the camera or will refuse the mission to be recorded if he will be the one will who Maya will punish then he wouldn't mind, but Maya knows that Tatsuya will not refuse if the servant is the one who will be punished.

In other words, this is the servant's mission to record Tatsuya's mission, if he fails in it, then he will be punished.

This is exactly what anyone will call 'A Very Cunning Leader'.

"Well then you can record this"

Tatsuya said those words to the servant from over his shoulder without turning around.

"Thank you very much"

The servant bowed deeply gratefully.

"One more thing, this is **NOT** a mission!"

"… my apologies"

"Then let's begin"

At that time, everyone was listening to the conversation between Tatsuya and the servant, except Tatsuya who either looking to the table while sipping a coffee from his cup or looking outside through the expensive glass.

But ...

"Ara Ara … I am really embarrassed with such a praise"

... his praise didn't go without comment.

Maya said that with big charming smile while her right hand was on her right cheek.

Still with that smile, you really can't decide if she was being honest or it was merely a facade.

"I did not praise you, I just admitted the truth Okaa-sama"

Tatsuya response to Maya while they stared at each other.

Maya gives a weak giggle while covering her mouth in proper behavior for a gentle lady, then turned her sight back to the display screen.

"Tatsuya-sama, everything is ready"

Tatsuya pulled out a long-barreled CAD from his left shoulder holster. This was a Specialized CAD shaped that was modeled after Silver Series Long-Models. It's name was the ' **Trident** '.

He stood before the protective railing of the building and slightly raised his right hand. The "muzzle" of the CAD was aimed at the Tokyo Grands Tokyo branch Hotel. There was a room originally reserved for the eastern branch of the New Soviet Union-based criminal organization [Equilibrium] and served as their operational HQ for eastern Japan.

Suddenly the video feed of the inside of the room took over half the screen. Apparently, the security cameras of the room had been hacked to record the things going on inside the room.

The members of the organization were discussing something. Suddenly, they heard a muffled screams.

In the corners of the room, four men could be seen.

They were the Artificially Enhanced Magicians(AEM) who were lent to the eastern Japanese branch for defending the branch againnst enemy attacks.

In order to protect against foreign attack, they provided four different types of magic defenses.

The magician responsible for Data Fortification on the walls was precisely the source of these screams.

The reason was blatantly obvious. The north facing wall had a gaping huge hole in it.

This was not caused by a collision, incision, or even a crack in the wall.

The only remnants were the steel bars and structure hanging loosely with some puffs of yellow dust and settling cement.

The screams were caused by the destruction of Data Fortification and the subsequent feedback to the caster.

Still, the painful sounds only lasted for a few seconds.

The members of the organization swiftly noticed the cause of the screams.

[Equilibrium] was not simply a criminal organization; they were a criminal organization that abused magic. They had taken up all the jobs of No Head Dragon in Japan after their japanese branch was destroyed last year.

In order to rise to the upper echelon, an individual must fulfill the condition of being a Combat Magician(one whose magic may be weak but effective in actual combat, like tatsuya)

They had to manipulate and identify magic. Hence they were able to comprehend what unfolded before their eyes.

The Eidos surrounding the AEM who let out those piteous screams — this was a Magician's natural defense that unconsciously spread out to automatically protect oneself with Data Fortification — had been stripped away.

No, the impression was more like the armor was being evaporated.

In an instant, the AEM's whole body was fading.

At this time, the space the magician's body used to occupy burst into a small flame.

Before the sprinklers could come alive, the small flame intermixed with orange, blue, and purple swiftly disappeared.

What fell to the rug was simply ashes.

The AEM's entire body disappeared and this was all that remained.

The members of the organization were so terrified that they forgot to scream.

They peered at one another with horrified expressions.

The member of the [Equilibrium] they were not the only one who were terrified.

Yuuka, Katsushige, Fumiya and Ayako were also have the same shocked mixed with a little horrified expression, although Miyuki had a similar feelings, she did not let it show on her face.

Alhough Miyuki, Ayako and Fumiya knew about the magic used by Tatsuya (he used to go for missions with the Kuroba Family, so Maya and Juuzo told the Truth about his abilities to them), they still hadn't seen it used on the that level from up close on a living body.

Yuuka and Katsushige were peering at the display screen with horrified expressions.

They were shocked enough to simply forget that they are setting with Yotsuba Maya in the same room.

"What was that …?!"

Katsushige said it with those mixed expressions on his face.

Although, Yuuka has the same expressions on her face she didn't utterance even a letter.

Fumiya and Ayako, even though they may understand 'what is going on?', they still don't know that Tatsuya can do something like that with his magic.

But they were having the same expressions that Yuuka and Katsushige have but with a less degree of reaction than them.

Miyuki was able to control her shock and started looking at the screen intently for what happened next.

Maya was sipping tea and kept watching the video without showing any expression.

The same goes with Hayama, he didn't show any expression while standing behind chair Maya was seated at and kept watching the display screen while waiting for the next order from his mistress.

Tatsuya didn't even look at the screen even once. Either sipping a coffee from his cup or looking outside.

All of a sudden, the telephone rang.

The sound came from the hidden land line.

One of them picked up the phone with extreme trepidation.

There was no image. Only the sound came across the display monitor.

"Hello, everyone from [Equilibrium's] eastern Japanese branch!"

Tatsuya spoke in an unnaturally cheery voice.

The voice that came across the speaker was that of a young man —a teenager.

"...Who are you?"

The voice didn't contain an interrogator's edge.

Was this because he was quaking on the inside after watching a human body disintegrate into the aether (Classical element) ?

Suddenly, the Wide Area Interference protecting the members of the organization disappeared without a trace.

Before their eyes, a dimly lit flame ignited and swiftly vanished.

The sprinklers reacted to the multiple heat sources and inundated the area with high pressured spray.

The AEM that should be standing there had vanished without a trace.

"Where? Number 14, where did that come from?"

One of the members stammered his words in order.

Number 14's slow, plodding movement pointed towards the broken hole in the wall.

Across the street was the highest point on this street.

Another a member quickly snatched up a pair of Binoculars.

After raising the optical lens to his eye, he raised the magnification.

On the rooftop of the Hotel a few Kilometres away, a youth wearing a black jacket and sunglasses was visible.

The member immediately screamed and fell to the floor.

His eye had been slashed by the shattered lens from the scope.

Still, the other members didn't have the time to worry about their moaning comrade who clutched at his eye.

"Number 14, Number 16, kill him!"

More than one voice ordered the AEMs to retaliate.

However—

"Unable to comply."

"Not within range."

The AEMs answered simply .

"Don't you dare talk back to me! Attack!"

The response came through the phone.

"Did you really believe I would give you the chance?"

As those words left Tatsuya's mouth.

The last 2 AEM turned into ashes and faded from the existence of the Earth.

"Instead of issuing orders to your tools. Why not try by yourself?"

The young man seemed to be mocking them.

Nevertheless, the men didn't seem to have the strength to rouse themselves to a fury.

He was at a distance at which the naked eye couldn't even make out if someone was there.

No one present had the ability to use magic against someone who was both unidentifiable and out of range.

One man sprinted for the land line.

The others frantically brought up the wireless phones within their terminals.

Yet, the land line only bleeped back a disconnected signal, nor were the wireless phones working either.

"It is useless. Right now I'm the only one you can speak with."

The same voice traveled along the original phone.

"How is this possible? Even the wireless signal... How did you..."

This man, who was shouting on Tatsuya, turned to ashes and his body faded to nothingness.

"All I did was converge the electronic waves. As to how I did this, there's no need for you to know."

Tatsuya answered his question after turned him into ashes. It was like his punishment for raising his voice over Tatsuya.

They understood perfectly well the meaning behind his words. Still, all those words did was solidify their sense of dread.

The member clutching one eye was so terrified that even he was crying for his legs to move and help him to flee from the hell, he had barely taken two steps toward the exit door when he turned to ashes.

"Now, let's cut to the chase."

With Devil's declaration, another member turned into ashes and faded to nothing.

The last three remaining members of the [Equilibrium's] eastern Japanese branch finally realized that their lives were held in the palm of a demon.

"W-Wait... Please wait a second!"

The man who served as the chief of the eastern Japanese branch seized the phone and shouted into the speaker.

"For what?"

"We...we promise to never bother anyone anymore!"

"You don't have to worry about that"

Tatsuya responded to his promise, since they were going to die anyway so what he said is not enough to convince Tatsuya.

"Not only just that, we will leave the country tomorrow! We will never again step foot into this country!"

He is still offering more convincing deals to save his life from this demon.

"Even if you leave, others will still come back, right?"

Tatsuya asked him.

"[Equilibrium] will abandon Japan completely! Not just eastern Japan, but western Japan as well!"

"Do you have the power to make such a promise, Kumarin Vladimir?"

The moment Tatsuya called out his name, the man's heart almost stopped from the blow.

Even so, Vladimir desperately kept speaking.

"I am the boss's confidant! The boss can't simply ignore my words!"

"In what way?"

Tatsuya asked him.

"In our organisation every branch head can ask for one favour from the boss which he cant refuse!"

"So you plan to use that 'favor' to bargain for your life."

Tatsuya concluded his words.

"Didn't you plan to use that favor to win back your life from your boss?"

"No! The boss wouldn't abandon me even if I didn't do that!"

In truth Vladimir didn't even know what his boss is going to do to him but he will do anything to flee from this demon.

"So you claim you have that much influence?"

Tatsuya asked him again.

"Indeed!"

"By what do you make this claim?"

"That..."

"[Equilibrium]- The state of equality. That name does not originate from your own organization, but was applied to you by other organizations because each member has the same worth.

The only person with more value than the rest-the leader, never appears before the subordinates.

Even those that require personal punishment are first rendered unconscious before being taken to a private room. Quite the thorough process indeed."

Vladimir was consumed by a fear that was altogether different from the terror that came from death or being disintegrated.

He(Tatsuya) knew too much about his situation.

Vladimir is inwardly cursing himself 'Whose tail did I tread on this time.'

"Since you have so much influence, surely you must have seen the leader?"

Regardless, he didn't have time to contemplate this.

In order to live, he must follow the path that this demon had pointed out to him.

"I have been granted an audience."

"What is your leader's name?"

Vladimir shut his trap.

That was the deepest secret within the organization.

The terror and loyalty that have been engraved upon his soul through the passage of the years

overrode the terror before his eyes.

But only for a moment.

"Robin!?"

Another one of his companions disappeared from this earth.

A destruction is so complete that he wasn't even permitted to die as a human being.

"So that was Wazousky Robin, eh. My apologies to the Interpol agents pursuing him across the globe."

Tatsuya apologies in mocking way.

"W-wait ..."

"Is it your turn now?"

"Please wait! ...Our boss's name is Mikhailov Sergei!"

"And his public persona?"

"...Mogilevich Seymon."

"Address?"

Hong Kong's upper class residential sector, name of the office building, frequented nightclubs, Vladimir held nothing back.

"...I swear that is everything I know."

"And my questions come to a close. Thank you very much."

"Then, you believe me?"

"Yes, you are undoubtedly one of [Equilibrium's] leader, Mogilevich Seymon's confidants."

Brought to the brink of extermination,

Vladimir's entire body seemed to sag as his expression sang of his deliverance.

This recently revived hope,

"Gregori!"

Was swiftly crushed with the annihilation of his last remaining comrade.

"...Why!?"

Vladimir said it in utter desperation that he was barely able to utter 'Why'.

"We didn't go so far as take lives!"

"We didn't even kill anyone, remember?"

Vladimir was known as cruel person with almost no empathy to other people, he would do dirty to achieve his goals, and shows no emotions when giving orders to kill other people.

But now the only remaining in that cruel person is, 'crying in pleading for his life out of fear from ethereal demon'.

At this time, Tatsuya had reach his limit playing with them, so he was no longer disguising his voice.

He had already obtained all the information he wanted, so there is no need to play out this farce any longer.

"How many people you killed, or how many you let live, it doesn't matter to me".

This time Tatsuya's voice was absent of the cheerful tone,

to be more honest his voice was absent of the all emotions.

Tatsuya didn't come here in the first place because they killed people or they did not.

"You people incurred my wrath ..."

"That's reason enough ... "

" ** _for you to meet your demise_**."

Tatsuya's voice, when he said "for you to meet your demise", was so cold and sharp enough to cut even through a mountain.

"… That magic... Was that the [ **Demon's Right** ]?"

That's all what Vladimir could ask, only now remembering the myths he had heard from his counterparts in the GAA.

"You tried to imitate the 'No Head Dragon' to be able to earn similar profits"

But Tatsuya continued on as if he hadn't heard him

"But you ended up doing the same mistake they did"

"You dared to touch that which cannot be touched"

"You dared threatening my kin's life, and thanks to you, I finally unleashed The ' _Power of the Demon_ ' "

"you say 'my kin' … you mean that girl a few days ago…"

Vladimir was barely able to said those words.

You can see through that quivering and shaking body,

He can't believe all this annihilation it was only for threatening his kin's life.

That statement became Kumarin Vladimir's last words.

Vladimir's voice cut off from there.

The entity that made up Vladimir was utterly extinguished from this world.

Then the video of the inside of the room turned was replaced by Tatsuya's sighing face.

"That was went exactly like No Head Dragon's cleaning operation. Fujibayashi-san have you got everything you needed?"

It was only then that they noticed that Tatsuya was using an earpiece.

"Alright then. Thank you for helping me out this time too Fujibayashi-san"

With that the display screen become a black, there is nothing to display anymore.

"Tatsuya-sama, would you like another cup of a black coffee?"

Hayama was so distracted by the confrontation, or rather annihilation,

that he didn't even notice when Tatsuya finished his coffee.

Tatsuya with glimpse upon Maya, he knew that she wants to say many things.

"Please, I'd like"

Quickly cleared up Tatsuya's cup.

"Was that really necessary? "

"I wonder~"

Maya said that words in her special tone.

Maya and Tatsuya stares to each other for a moment without utter a word.

While Tatsuya wasn't showing any expression, Maya was smiling.


	4. Secrets Revealed

**Secrets Revealed**

A few minutes after seeing the highest level of Tatsuya's innate magic, Fumiya and Ayako were able to collect themselves. But they were not able to suppress the feeling of terror went through their bodies when they saw Tatsuya.

Even though they knew that Tatsuya could be pretty scary when he's angry, but seeing something is very different than hearing it.

Miyuki had lesser reaction to Tatsuya's power and his ' _Demon side_ '. You can say even that she didn't show any reactions at all. As Miyuki was always with Tatsuya for almost 3 years so she knows him the best.

Although she was very happy with his declaration that unleashing the ' _Power of the Demon_ ' was due to threatening his kin's life.

Katsushige was shocked to the degree that he didn't even know what to think about first.

His weird magic? It was so fearsome for him that he even forgot how many chills went through his body.

Or about believing that he is not talented when it comes to using magic.

What was shocking him the most was what he did to the [Equilibrium](and, according to him, even the 'No Head Dragon').

He put them in utter fear and desperation, enough to say that the members of the organization wished they weren't born in the first place. And all of that for the sake of revenging his kin.

There are so many things he wants to ask. Why didn't we know about this power? Why did the main house cover the truth about his strength? And so many things…

Yuuka was really shocked the most.

She is in the same boat as Katsushige, she has the same questions that Katsushige has.

Moreover, his power was so terrifying that she forgot how to breathe for a moment.

Even though Yuuka is fond of destructive magic.

She was be scared of him after what she just saw. His magic is powerful enough to dominate the members of the [Equilibrium].

To degree that the whole time from the beginning until the end of the confrontation,

not only their life, but even their bodies were under his mercy.

Turning their bodies to dust.

A destructive power so complete that there was nothing remaining of them like they were not on the earth in the first place.

What really makes her happy was that all was for the sake of revenge for what happened to her and her guardian.

If it wasn't for her guardian who scarified himself instead of her, she would not be there in the first place.

Going so far as to unleash his " _Power of the Demon_ " because her life was being threatened.

But that's not the only reason why she was happy.

Yotsuba Clan is highly protective of their kin and, when threatened, will ensure painful payback to those who dared to do so.

The evidence of this point is the ' _The_ _Nightmare of 2062_ '.

As such, the Yotsuba are known to others as a clan that will never pardon anyone for making a move on their kin.

However, after the incident and losing half of their combat strength, the system within the Yotsuba has changed.

Every branch family has to protect it's members by its own powers. If it becomes a problem the branch family can't handle, the main family will ask the other branch families to aid the family in revenge for their kin.

However, that will hurt the reputation of the family between the other families in terms of power.

That how the system of the Yotsuba when an organization or any individual threatens one of them.

Yuuka suddenly remembered that she had not thanked Tatsuya till now.

"I would like to thank you in taking care of the [Equilibrium]"

Maya smiled, after such a long wait, people were finally getting to know **HER** son and his wonderful magic.

"As I said before this was not a mission"

Tatsuya response was honest.

"Still you can't deny that we are Yotsuba in the end, and as a member of the family, I have to thank you for doing what should have been done by my family."

While Tatsuya closed his eyes for second took a sip of his coffee.

Even though Maya façade was almost impossible to read through, but Tatsuya and Maya can see through each other's masks since they are both experts in hiding their emotions.

"So, what is it you wished to speak to me about?"

Tatsuya sends message to Maya 'even though you try to hide it I still can read some of your intentions'.

"It's a bit early to be thinking that far"

Maya responded to him in the same way by saying 'you are overthinking'.

"You believed that I would reach such conclusion without a proof?"

Maya did not verbally answer his challenge.

Rather, her answer could be found in her looking away.

After a few moments.

"Tatsuya-kun, you should marry your light elemental friend Honoka-san."

When she finally spoke, it was not a reply but rather a direct command from the head of the Yotsuba Clan.

That didn't go without reactions, however it is different from a person to a person.

Fumiya, Yuuka and Katsushige were shocked, to degree their mind gives them false imaginations like 'It just joked', or 'I didn't hear very well'.

Ayako and Miyuki were the ones who had been affected the most with the order.

They understand that whenever Maya gives a direct order to a person, that means there is no going back on her decision.

Ayako lowered her head to look at her legs to cover her eyes, her eyes were moistened with tears, she has a face that at any time will begin to cry.

Miyuki placed her trembling hands in front of her mouth.

Somehow, Miyuki restrained her scream by moving her hands that were blocking her mouth to her chest.

She held them both on top of her heart, and blinked tightly before looking down as if embracing her body to withstand the pain.

Miyuki was experiencing a 'my chest was about to break apart' in reality.

"Marry Honoka, Why?"

Tatsuya continued on as if he didn't see their reactions.

"Honoka-san is powerful magician and an elemental at that. A child from both of you will be a highly valued magician for the Yotsuba"

"Well, fair enough"

That was the killing blow for Ayako, she can't hold the tears more than this. The rest were completely stunned after Tatsuya replied.

Miyuki was almost near to fainted, she was inwardly shouting 'Why can't I be onii-sama's wife'.

Ayako wanted to ask permission to leave.

"But I refused."

Her body frozen in his place. However, the reason was not known for what exactly.

Sudden drop in temperature, not a physical drop, but rather due to the incredible tension.

That drop in temperature will not go away without victims.

Every one of the candidates and Ayako are shivering from the incredible tension.

Hayama tensed under the tension, the experience of 70 long years help him to not show it.

Maya's reputations as being one of, if not the most powerful magician in the world wasn't for just a show.

Hayama gives a deep sigh because he knows at this rate the problem will only aggravate.

The candidates and Ayako were looking at both of Maya and Tatsuya.

"You know that I can only show emotions for the people i am related to by blood, it is impossible to look at her in any way other than a friend."

"The reason is irrelevant"

Maya answered Tatsuya's reason to be irrelevant.

In other words, Maya is trying to say that

'Just because you are seeing here as a friend, that doesn't change the propose of marrying her to you.'

"I suppose"

There was no longer a trace of any expression upon either Maya or Tatsuya's face.

"Are you disobeying my direct order?"

"I thought It was only a request"

Tatsuya is sending a secretive message to Maya 'I will not follow such an order'.

The tension reached its peak.

Everyone in the room was shivering just from the terrifying tension from the scene, sufficient for every one of them to not move his gaze away from the scene.

Within that period of urgency, as if time had stopped.

The world turned to 'Night'.

It was not mere darkness.

Floating within the darkness, shone a brilliant sea of stars.

The roof of the solarium became a moonless, starlit night sky.

The stars flowed, becoming rays of light.

Those rays of light reached Tatsuya's body however ...

Without a sound,

That indoor 'Night' shattered instantaneous.

Revealed within was Maya and Tatsuya still staring at each other without change.

However, the sense of tension which had once surged between them,

had faded with the collapse of 'Night'.

Hayama, the candidates and Ayako, they reached their limit in enduring anymore tension.

There was enough to make them feel thar they can be killed anytime by mistake.

The speed of casting of both the magic were insane,

Enough that Miyuki and the rest did not understand what was going on.

At the speed of human cognition, 'Night' suddenly showed from nowhere

And at the time their brains were trying to process the situation,

The Night suddenly disappeared.

Their hearts stoppef beating for a moment.

They felt like they were sitting between two real demons.

" …. It seems you went rather easy on me."

Although, Tatsuya said those words, the truth it was an overkill for almost any other magician in the world.

Since nobody can defend against her innate magic except Tatsuya himself.

As Tatsuya mutter those words, Maya smiled very cheerful at him.

This smiled is aiming unconditionally affectionate and love toward Tatsuya.

"Of course. You're my cute son after all."

For moments that's smile and those eyes looking upon Tatsuya, all what that eyes aiming affection and love toward her son.

The candidates and Ayako were beyond stunned.

Even in their wildest dreams, nobody could have ever thought that the 'Demon Lady of Far East', 'Queen of Night' could show such human expressions.

It seems almost as if Tatsuya could humanize her.

This meeting was full of shocking news.

Their brains can't hold any more surprises.

They were completely speechless.

Maya regains a normal smile.

That affection and loving aura had disappeared.

"Still, even allowing for that you did well. And so, this time I will permit you your selfishness. Just choose a beautiful daughter-in-law for me."

"Thank you very much. I am going to propose to her by tomorrow night, and she is very beautiful."

This time Tatsuya was very honest and truthful in his words.

"Just give me a lot of grandchildren to care for Tatsuya-kun"

Wordlessly, Tatsuya rose.

At his light bow, Maya shook her hands in a flutter.

Hayama bowed respectfully to Tatsuya who left the room.

Miyuki was very jealous of the lucky girl. At the same time she was thinking 'the one onii-sama loves. I wonder who that could be'.

While all this was happening, Katsushige was thinking about how Tatsuya broke through the Night created by Maya.

Maya's magic was 'Meteor Stream'.

The Japanese name is representation of the appearance of the magic,

While the english name

'Meteor Line' is a representation of the nature of the magic.

This magic which had cemented Maya's place as one of, if not the most powerful magician in the world, earning her the name ' _Demon Lady of the Far East_ ' and ' _Queen of Night_ ' is a Convergence Type Systematic magic.

It controls the distribution of light in its area of effect.

It's power is especially amplified in a closed space such as rooms or tunnels.

The apparent process of this magic first forms countess tiny balls of light floating in the darkened area,

which are then shot out as rays.

The attack appears like a shower of lasers, but the power of Meteor Line

has no connection with the energy of the light.

Even the amount of light is irrelevant.

The essence of the magic lies in forcing the redistribution of light, where the coordinates for light to be in are set as little balls and lines are then drawn between them.

Anything in the path of the space the light passes through is modified as

the light is transmitted.

Regardless of the hardness of the object, heat resistance, plasticity, or resilience, a hole is drilled through. Not even highly transparent glass holding an optical transparency of approximately 100% can escape the event modification that ' _light has passed through_ ' and therefore ' _a hole was made'._

Looking at the logic behind this magic, rather than the phenomenon

itself, it can be concluded that

The magic interferes with the structural information of the object via the distribution of light,

Directly vaporizing solids and liquids without affecting heat or pressure.

In other words, a type of decomposition magic which decomposes into gas.Since it's defined as a ' _ray of distributed light_ '.

In conclusion.it's almost impossible to defend against Meteor Line with anti-magic.

Since it's mediated via the physical phenomenon called light, preventing it purely via anti magic such as interference over an area is extremely difficult.

If one's interference strength in the single element ' _distribution of light_ ' cannot exceed Maya's, ' _Meteor_ _Line_ ' is unstoppable.

And once the magic has been activated, even if you try and cause interference in the area of effect,

the phenomena rewriting effect that _'light has moved_ ' has already taken place.

Due to that Maya stands invincible in a fight between magicians.

She is regarded as one of if not the strongest magician in the world.

However — as ' _Meteor Line_ ' operates by indirectly interfering with the eidos of an enclosed space,

It decisively loses out to an ability to directly interfere with structural information.

In reality, the existence of magic to directly interface with structural information is impossible,

Or should we say 'it should not be possible'.

So he concluded that Tatsuya must have used some other kind of magic to break through the Night.

But even so, if Tatsuya was late by even a moment,

The rays of light were going to pass through his body the situation, 'holes were made' in his body.

And since she didn't send the rays of light to a specific part of Tatsuya's body like 'hand, thigh...' to only harm him,

she aimed the rays of light on every part of Tatsuya's body except his head and heart.

In other words, that attack was holding the intent to kill for disobeying her order.

You can't call something like that as 'going easy'.

There were two reasons behind Maya's attack.

The first was a clear message to everyone 'Disobeying my orders will not go without any punishment which will be your life'.

The second and the real reason was that Maya was testing her son's magic. Therefore, when Tatsuya stops her magic she was struggling to not move and give him 'crushing hug', because Maya at that time knew that Tatsuya was 'Worthy of being Maya's son'.

No to be honest Maya was saying 'I am proud to be called your Mother'.

Maya turned her gaze to the candidates and Ayako, who were speechless and they don't know what to say.

However, Maya didn't give them the time to say something.

"My apologies for making you wait, but before I declare my successor"

"Hayama-san, please some tea for everyone"

"Certainly"

Hayama starts preparing tea for everyone as Maya instructed him.

While they are waiting Hayama to bring the tea,

Maya didn't utter a word, she kept looking at the sky.

After a few moments, Hayama brought some tea for them, after sipping tea from her cup that Hayama brought.

Maya is in very happy.

After almost 18 years of waiting, Maya can finally announce Tatsuya as her son.

The candidates and Ayako can see that clearly in Maya.

Maya turns her sight to them,

And she can see so many expressions on their faces.

Maya was enjoying seeing those expressions on their faces, especially the expression they are giving on their face about Tatsuya being able to break through her strongest magic.

"I know that you have so many questions. Since I am in a nice mood right now, I will permit you to ask few questions"

Maya said that to the candidates and Ayako.

Usually None of them have the authority to questing Maya's words,

however because Maya was so happy she will permit such a thing.

Miyuki was the fastest to raise her hand for permission.

Well that was expecting from her, since she was so shocked and her eyes were fighting the tears from falling.

"What is it?"

Maya asked Miyuki.

"Is Onii-sama really not my Onii-sama?"

Such question or behavior from Miyuki was expected.

"That's true since I just mentioned it before showing you the video."

Maya said those words to Miyuki.

Even though such a question was not the right one to be chosen Miyuki,

Because Miyuki's question said 'you are lying, right?',

But Maya understands Miyuki's feelings and didn't show to reprimand her.

"...I am sorry."

Was all Miyuki could say after that.

Katsushige raised his hand for permission.

"What is it?"

Maya asked Katsushige.

"I though Tatsuya-san can't use magic. More specifically the main house had reported that Tatsuya-san can't use magic as he is Born-Specialized magician?"

Katsushige asked Maya, more specifically, that question was only half of his true question.

"Yes that's true, however for your second question it will be answered in later."

Maya just read through his intention from the beginning.

She knew that question was only for making sure he was right about his information about Tatsuya being Born-Specialized magician

To ask the second question which is

'Then may I know why the main house had made a fake report about Tatsuya-san true magic?'.

Katsushige knew that just because Maya said 'Since I am in a nice mood right now, I will permit you to ask few questions'

Doesn't mean that he can ask without paying attention for what he is going to ask.

Katsushige was planning to raised his hand for permission to ask another question,

but it seems Yuuka was faster than him this time.

"What is it Yuuka-san?"

Maya asked Yuuka.

"May I ask about Tatsuya-san's magic?"

Yuuka asked the same question Katsushige was planning to ask.

Yuuka was fond of all magic with lots of destructive power, and this magic has reached beyond limit of destruction power.

Therefore it was understandable thar she would ask such a question.

However, Maya happily smiled for that question.

"That's magic was Tatsuya's innate magic."

"The name of his Magic is 'Decomposition', also known as 'Dispersion'."

Maya uttered those word in utter happiness.

Maya continued, while keeping her gaze upon them.

"Relying on his innate ability to directly interfere with eidos, after identifying the design of any Eidos, sequence or object, he can decompose the design."

Katsushige and Yuuka's eyes opened wide at that declaration, they understood the meaning of this.

To interfere with Eidos that means you have to be able see and understand information structure through the information Dimension, which is impossible because no one can see or has the magic to interfere with with the information structure by any types of magics in modern magic.

However, Maya's was the only magic ever which could interfere with the Eidos, but even that was indirect interference. Therefore she must understand what she wants to aim at first then she can apply her magic on that object, but since Maya indirectly interferes with Eidos, she doesn't need to see or understand the information structure of an object.

Even though Maya kept smiling, but inwardly she was like a child who just got a new toy she is struggling to keep her body from jumping in happiness.

"In that video, Tatsuya used his Decomposition at it's third highest level by decomposing the matter down to the atomic level."

Maya said those words and stayed quite for a few moment, to drag their attention to the next part of the explanation.

"The decomposition was so complete that it was no longer recognizable as a biological entity and left no traces that they were living beings.

Proteins were broken down into hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur;

the bones were rendered down to phosphorus, oxygen, and calcium;

everything including blood, the nervous system, stored nutrients,

even waste was decomposed down to the molecules and ions.

The lighter elements, with hydrogen at their head, escaped through the hole in the outer wall to the outside.

The flammable elements interacted with oxygen and burst into flames almost as if the human body spontaneously ignited.

Yet, the reality was that they had vanished rather than being consumed by the flames"

Maya explained what happened to the bodies of the members of [Equilibrium].

Such explanation didn't go without chill going through Yuuka and Katsushige's body.

Imagining such a thing happening to a human body places fear even in the harshest heart.

"Tatsuya is incredibly dexterous and skilled with this ability.

He can cast it as an area of effect Decomposition magic to act as a defensive wall around him,

or focus it around portions of his body to act as a 'sword' to cut through anything."

"He is also able to fire his ability as a projectile with the size of needle,

by re-writing a small portion of the entire human body,

the parts that formed the human body, including skin, flesh, nerves, body fluids, bones and cellular structures can be decomposed at a molecular level, creating a piercing hole.

This ability is one of the most challenging techniques in modern magic, and has the highest level of difficulty in magic imaginable."

Maya concluded her explanation.

There were no voices after the explanation. The same expression is on both Katsushige and Yuuka's face-'beyond what can be called Utter Shocked'.

They almost can't believe such a magic exists, to be more precise, they were not going to believe in the existence of a magic like that if they didn't see it with their own eyes.

Since Miyuki, Fumiya and Ayako already knew about his magic 'Decomposition', they didn't show any expression like them, but they defiantly they were happy with Katsushige and Yuuka's reactions.

"I don't want to be a rude Toushu-sama, but I would have denied the existence of such a magic after hearing those words from you. But since I saw it with my own eyes there is no way to I can deny it"

Katsushige said those words with an honest heart.

All that can Yuuka do is nod her head in agreement with Katsushige's words.

Maya is beyond happy after hearing those words.

She was so satisfied with their reaction for her son's magic,

enough for her to weakly giggle while covering her mouth as gentle lady.

"I don't blame you for saying that"

Maya said that with giving a little wave of her hand as 'don't worry', she understands the meaning behind his words.

In the Yotsuba Clan, when they discovered that Maya had the ability to indirectly interfere with information structure, they were completely shocked, because There was NO magician who could interfere with information structure,

or to be more precise, there was no magician who could ever directly/indirectly interfere with information structure.

Therefore Yotsuba family Members went as far as calling Maya 'the strongest Yotsuba magician',

since she had the strongest unstoppable magic in the world.

To believe someone who has come to directly interface with information structure is unbelievable.

Since a magic like this was not known to the public.

Not even a soldier with high rank in the army knows about the existence of such a magic,

only the highest ranking military officers know about it. And all that they know about it is just information about Decomposition can exist theoretically but that the practical of the magic was impossible. Everyone thinks it's useless information since it can't be applied.

Still they can't offer such information about magic like Decomposition to the general public.


	5. The Next Head

**The Next Head**

"Well, since I am finished with the explanation of Tatsuya's magic for you, I would like to tell you something important.

From his birth, Tatsuya was the apparent heir of the Yotsuba, but we (the main family) decided to keep Tatsuya's magic a secret until the time was right.

For that reason, Shiba Tatsuya was ousted from his position as the heir of the Yotsuba.

Therefore, Miyuki-san, Fumiya-san, Yuuka-san and Katsushige-san had been made candidates to be my successor."

Maya explained to them why they have been chosen as candidates for being her successor.

"But right now, Yotsuba Tatsuya is a one of the candidates as well."

Such a declaration, was very shocking for everyone.

"Of course, I don't want to deny your efforts in trying to be my successor,

therefore I will give you the same chance as Tatsuya for the position of the clan head."

"Do you have any questions ?"

Miyuki and Fumiya raises their hand almost simultaneously.

"Ara Ara .. Miyuki-san and Fumiya-san raised their hands simultaneously …"

Maya made a joke about their perfect timing.

"Miyuki-san, please speak first"

Fumiya gives the lead to Miyuki as he respects her and she is older than him.

"Thank you Fumiya-san"

Miyuki thanked Fumiya for his gentle behavior.

"Obaa-sama, I want to withdraw from being a candidate, and support Onii-sama as Obaa-sama's successor, please consider my request"

Miyuki said those words while keeping herself from jumping in her place out of happiness.

At that time, Yuuka' anxious appearance disappeared.

Her family wanted to support Miyuki as the next successor, but after watching what Tatsuya could do today, she was thinking who to give up her seat for. But when Miyuki had chosen Tatsuya, then what reason was there to oppose her?

Maya then turned to Fumiya.

"Fumiya-san, what did you want to say?"

Maya asked Fumiya.

"I also want to withdraw from being a candidate, and support Yotsuba Tatsuya-san as Maya-sama's Successor. Please consider my request".

Fumiya requests Maya to consider his wish.

"Ara Ara ... I am surprised that you withdrew, I though the Kuroba family wanted you as my successor"

Even though she said that, she knew that Fumiya was going to withdraw and support Tatsuya.

"Otou-sama already told Fumiya that he will respect any decision he made."

Ayako was the one who answered Maya's question.

"I see"

Yuuka raises her hand this time.

"Yuuka-san, perhaps, you as well?"

Maya was laughing at her request.

"Yes."

Yuuka rose and bowed in a pompous gesture.

"The Tsukuba Family also supports the nomination of Yotsuba Tatsuya-san in becoming the next family head."

After Yuuka returned to her seat with a bow, Maya happily raised a laugh.

"You guys, do you perhaps think that 'the head of this family isn't allowed to determine the next family head at her own discretion or something?"

She wiped the tears in the corners' of her eyes.

Back when Maya said 'Don't bother yourself in thinking about them because all the necessary actions, to make sure they will not move again on you, has been taken' to Yuuka who was at that time concerned about this organization,

because it seemed that the group will not let her go until they got what they wanted.

So the Tsukuba family had to take care of the organization themself to protect it's member, or else asking the main house for help, however if they asked for help, the reputation of Tsukuba family would be affected.

It was not like Tsukuba family couldn't take care of the organization by themselves, but taking care of an organization like [Equilibrium] will inflict damages, something that they want to avoid it by any mean.

Therefore, she was very grateful for Maya when she got to know that Tatsuya took care of them.

And then there was the fact that the Tsukasa family were weak among other branches, so she wanted to gain the favour of the next head as soon as possible.

"Well then, It seems the only two remaining as candidates are Tatsuya and Katsushige-san"

As Maya said that, Katsushige raises his hand for permission to speak.

"What is it Katsushige-san?"

Maya asked Katsushige.

"I would like to withdraw from being as candidate. And I will support Tatsuya-san as Maya-sama's successor but I have a request to make."

"Request?"

Maya asked him about his request.

"With Maya-sama's premission, I would like to marry my guardian Kotona-san"

Even Yuuka choked on her water flashily and opened her mouth.

Fumiya with his thin skin was blushing. The stimulus was too strong for him.

"Kotona-san is a member of the second generation of the 'Sound Series'. I am not sure how long they can live.

She is not a proper a wife for a future branch head of the Yotsuba clan."

As Maya spoke, Katsushige took on a grim appearance.

Then after a few moments of silence.

"It's fine, you have my permission."

Maya answered his request with acceptance.

"Since I don't want for two people who love each other to be apart"

As those words left Maya's mouth, she glanced meaningfully to a girl.

That girl looked down to her legs, while she tried and failed to suppress her blush.

"Thank you very much"

Katsushige was so happy.

"Well then, It seems like Tatsuya is the only one who left"

"Then I, Yotsuba Maya, announce my son Yotsuba Tatsuya as the heir of the Yotsuba Clan by default"

She made the announcement without announcing her decision.

Miyuki, Fumiya and Ayako were happy with the announcement.

"The meeting is ended, make sure you tell the branch head families about my announcement and about Tatsuya's magic as explained to you."

Maya ordered them.

"Understood"

They replied to her with a bow.

"You may leave now"

Wordlessly, they rose.

After a light bow, they left the room.

After candidates and Ayako left the Solarium, Maya was lost in her thought for a while.

Hayama cleared up the cups, with glimpse over his mistress he figured out that she was in good spirits.

"May I ask question?"

Hayama asked Maya to give him the permission to speak.

"What is it?"

"Was that really necessary?"

Hayama asked his mistress. Such a behavior he can't do it, since no matter how you look at the situation he is still a servant, it doesn't matter if he is the head butler or not.

But since Maya is in good spirits right now, and they are alone it will be fine.

"It's fine. Ah, I know full well what it is you are concerned about."

Such a behavior from Tatsuya, disobeying a direct order from the clan head will let the others doubt Tatsuya's loyalty for the Yotsuba"

"… my apologies"

"I trust Tatsuya, he will not ever betray the Yotsuba, since he values his Clan above everything except for Miyuki-san.

What's important for now, is paying back to Tatsuya what I had taken from him"

As those words left Maya' mouth, Hayama sighed deeply.

All the 'Tatsuya marries Honoka-san' was facade for Tatsuya to refused the order due to which, Maya would be forced to use 'Meteor Stream' on Tatsuya as a punishment.

She was sure that Tatsuya could stop her magic theoretically.

Since Tatsuya can directly interfere with information structure then he could stop Maya's magic.

However, that didn't change the fact she didn't go all out over Tatsuya.

Therefore Tatsuya said that "it seems you went easy on me"

Tatsuya had figured out she was aiming from the beginning for this moment to show he could even stop 'Meteor Stream', the most powerful combat magic in the world.

Considering Maya's purpose, she did that in front the candidates, especially Yuuka and Katsushige, for them to doubt their ability in matching Tatsuya in combat.

As he had proved that he could fight the 'strongest magician of Yotsuba'.

The most important thing is to earn more support for her son to show that he's worthy of being the heir of the Yotsuba, since the candidates themselves withdrew to support Tatsuya as the next clan head of Yotsuba.

Ironically, Maya declared Tatsuya as the heir for the Yotsuba Clan by default, even before she declared her chosen heir which was Tatsuya in the first place.

"Was that really necessary, you could just say that 'I choose him because he is my son' and nobody would object".

Did just Hayama cast the oil over the fire?

"HAYAMA"

Yes, he did it.

Maya shouted on Hayama for his word in scolded way, while she is converting her flushed cheeks with her hands.

Hayama was trying to say, 'You could just say the truth about why you choose Tatsuya-sama, there was no need for all this drama'

Maya is trying her best to suppress the blush that had shown upon her cheeks.

"Sorry"

Hayama apologized, in an informal way, for embarrassing her.

You can conclude that even if they, in the reality, have Master – Servant relationship, still Hayama can speak freely and say thing that others would shrink back in fear from.

This is approved that the relationship between Maya and Hayama is closer to that of a Father-daughter than that of a Master-Servant.

With a deep bow, Hayama left for the room.


	6. New Year's Gathering

**Pairings:**

Tatsuya/Miyuki/Mayumi/Ayako/Kyouko/Angelina/Honoka/Shizuku/Yuuka/Azusa

Kuroba Fumiya/Saegusa Izumi

Saijou Leonhard/Chiba Erika

Yoshida Mikihiko/Shibata Mizuki

Chiba Naotsugu/Watanabe Mari

Jumonji Katsuto/Ichihara Suzune

Ushiyama(Mr. Taurus)/Ono Haruka

Kudou Minoru/Sakura Minami

Ichijou Masaki/Isshiki Airi

Kichijouji Shinkurou/Akane Ichijou

Shippou Takuma/Kasumi

Kokonoe Yakumo/Sakura Honami

* * *

 **New Year Gathering**

* * *

 **31 December** **2096**

* * *

The entire clan was in an uproar that day when the future branch heads told their families about Tatsuya. They couldn't believe that the 'failure' of the clan was to become the next clan head. That was before they came to know about his magic, the one which they did not know about. They refused to believe the existence of such a magic at first, just like the candidates had predicted.

Just when they were about to give it up as a lost cause, they heard knocks coming from their door and a package being slipped underneath it. They opened the package to see a copy of the video they just saw, which they put on the big screen for their family.

Utter silence followed. The fear felt by the soldiers of GAA in the Okinawa invasion when the saw the true might of 'Maheshwara' was nothing compared to the fear and the feeling of dread felt by the members of the Yotsuba clan then. The person they had insulted, spit on, and what not could have destroyed their very existence in the blink of an eye was a scary thought indeed.

So they all decided to improve their relationship with him. Especially a girl who found herself attracted to him and his special magic, if it could even be called as such.

* * *

 **-)]X[(-**

* * *

While all this was going on, Miyuki was crying her eyes out in her room, on her bed. The person she had been calling Onii-sama for 5 years, the very person she had loved for as long as she can remember, now turned out to not be so. He had been lying to her all her life.

She was so deep in thought that she didn't hear the door open and close. She didn't even hear when someone sat down beside her. However, she did feel it when the same person pulled her into a loving hug, rocking her back and forth.

She knew who the person was. She could have identified him by the heat his body emitted alone. She had spent almost all her time in the past 5 years by his side. It was the very person whom she was thinking about. It was _Yotsuba_ Tatsuya.

"Why?" It was the only word she was able to speak after she regained a bit of control over her emotions.

"Because I wanted to always stay near you, Miyuki. It was not possible any other way. I was adopted by your mother when I was but a few days old. I became your guardian so that the clan won't be able to ever separate us. I always wanted to be near you, because I love you Miyuki."

That was all the confirmation Miyuki needed before she once again latched onto him for dear life.

"Miyuki, I have to tell you something."

"What is it, Onii-sama?"

"I lied to you Miyuki. I only emotion I have left is not 'Brotherly Love', it is 'Familial Love'. I can feel emotions for any person whom I consider to be my family. Like our friends, Erika, Leo, Mikihiko, Mizuki, Mayumi, I see all of them as my family, that is how I am able to express emotions for them. This is the only way I can get to express my emotions."

"But if that is the case, then why are you able to express more emotions for me than the others? I am family to you just like the others?"

"I already told you Miyuki. It is because I love you."

A sharp intake of breath and increased heart rate told him that she understood where this was going. He sat both of them on the bed, before dropping on the floor in front of her on his knee. Taking out a box from his pocket, and opening it to show a ring shaped like a dragon. The band was made out of the finest of golds, and details of the ring making it look exquisite. Our birthstones were embedded in the eyes of the dragon, aquamarine on the left, diamond on the right. The mouth of the dragon was open as if blowing out flames, holding a small but beautiful spherical blue sapphire.

A beautiful ring.

"So I ask you Miyuki, will you marry me?"

* * *

 **-)]X[(-**

* * *

 **1 January 2097**

* * *

As everyone was being led from the lobby to the meeting room, they couldn't help but stop and stare in awe at one Miyuki Shiba. The reason for this was her long white furisode. She looked like a bride to be in it. To describe her in one word would be simply... stunning. Even Tatsuya was not able to stop himself from staring at her in a very loving manner. Together they met up with others of their generation and started the small talk.

Slowly the lobby started to get empty until only the two of them were left until Minami came back for them too. Tatsuya sat on the immediate right of Maya, further cementing his position as her son, while Miyuki sat beside him.

"Everyone, once again, Happy New Year to all of you."

While declaring her proclamation, Maya, who wore a splendorous black tomesode bountifully adorned with gold thread, despite the fact that she was not married, the whole congregation said, "Happy New Year" in perfect chorus.

Tatsuya and Miyuki also anticipated that, so they readied their voices without delay.

Maya looked around with a content look before starting once again.

"Today, on top of the auspicious new year, I have another piece of good news to be delivered to everyone. This matter is something that has made my heart truly delighted."

With that introduction, Maya first turned her eyes to Katsushige. Beside Katsushige, who was donning a haori hakama just like Tatsuya and the rest of the males, sat Kotona who was donning a furisode just like Miyuki and the other females.

"Katsushige-san, the eldest son of the Shibata Family, and Kotona Tsutsumi have recently gotten engaged."

Huge cheers roared. Tatsuya tried to pick for some whispers from the crowds. There were more people who said 'as I've thought' or 'finally' than people who said 'really'.

"From here on, it probably won't be just happy times, there will be a lot of things you will struggle with, but please wish the young couple bountiful blessings ahead."

An ovation broke out from the assembly. However, Tatsuya wasn't able to ignore how before that there were a lot of people who nodded in agreement when Maya said 'a lot of things you will struggle with'.

"Next, I shall be announcing what everyone has been most concerned about."

The assembly went silent as if someone threw water at them.

"Fufufu, it is as you have all thought." Maya smiled as if irritated. Even so, there was neither a whisper nor a sound from the assembly.

Perhaps, she was satisfied with this reaction, or may be dissatisfied. Keeping up her secretive smile, Maya presented the name of the next family head.

"I would like to entrust the position of the family head to my son Yotsuba Tatsuya over here."

Instead of applause, came a huge commotion. It was in no way whispering, it was exchanged conversations.

"Pardon me, Toushu-sama, but would you permit me to ask a question?"

The voice came from Yuuka's vicinity. The woman who wore a comfortable irotomesode, was Yuuka's mother, the Tsukuba Family's Head, Tsukuba Touka.

"Tsukuba-dono, what is it?"

Maya asked her with a calm questioning smile.

Touka asked her with a stiff expression bereft of calmness.

"You just said 'my son', but did I mishear that? As far as I remember, Tatsuya-san is the son of Miya-sama, Toushu-sama's Onee-sama."

"Ahh, I was coming to that Tsukuba-dono. You see, after the Dahan incident, Otou-sama had found some of my eggs preserved over there. They were artificially inseminated with the sperm of a donor of Eisaku-oji's choosing.

It was implanted into my sister as the doctors had deemed the walls of my uterus to be too weak now to carry the weight of a child.

I was going to keep him as my child, but he reached magical maturity by the time he turned a day old. He accidentally killed the doctor who brought him to this world. For that reason, his magic was deemed too destructive to be used until he can properly control it.

Tatsuya was later on adopted by Miya because she was the only one capable of putting a limiter on his magic at that point of time.

The magic you saw yesterday was a toned down version of the true potency of his strategic class magic, **material burst** , which converts matter into pure energy. The explosion at the end of the battle of Okinawa, the Yokohama incident, and the Scorched Halloween were all his doings. They were done by converting a 50g bullet, a 50 cubic cm drop of water and a 1 Kg flagpole respectively. Think about what he could do if he had a temper tantrum when he was younger and decided that the sun wasn't needed anymore?

So to start his training as soon as he learned to stand to be able to control his tried our hardest, and he got a bit of control on them, but then I decided to take him to GAU as a gift for controlling his emotions so well.

He knew I was his mother at that point of time. He had come to know by another one of his special magic, the elemental eye, or the eye of the spirits, which can see directly into the idea. It also gives him the ability to directly interact with the Eidos of a substance.

Well back to the story, over there, he noticed the looks of fear the people were sending me. Being the curious boy he was, he decided to ask me about it. So, thinking that he would come to know sooner or later, I told him everything, from Dahan to his birth.

That day, Tatsuya lost control of his second combat magic for the first time."

At this point, Yuuka spoke up, "Second? I thought he only possessed **Decomposition**?"

"He used to possess another god-like power, called **Astral Projection** **_(The idea for this magic came from the story 'The Prince of Yotsuba' by 'Fujin of Shadows', one of the best writer of Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei fanfics)_**. He could create creatures from pushions with a psion core, some of which could even cast magic themselves. He locked away this magic while putting a limiter on his others as it was more dangerous than all of his other magic combined.

So he lost control of his combat magic and became the cause of the massacre of Xi'an."

The people present at the assembly had to resist the urge to do a double take. It was one of the most destructive events in the history of magic, and to learn that it was caused simply because a 5-year-old lost control over his magic...The feeling of fear it generates in your heart... It simply can't be ignored. Now they understood why the truth about his magic was hidden from even the rest of the clan. They would have feared him to such a degree that they may not have been able to look past it to see the boy wielding these capabilities.

" **Ghosts** (pushion bodies which can cause irregularities in electronics) and **Spectrals** (basically more powerful ghosts) appearing all over the cafe we were at, acting on the anger of their creator and attacking anyone they could see except for me or him. It was such a lovely site. But unfortunately all good things must come to an end. He ended up summoning an **Astral Beast** , the highest level of **Astral Projection** possible. An **Astral Beast** has a psion core 3 times that of a Class-A Magician, and can cast magic themselves. They even have their own personality. But that caused too great a stress on his body, and he fell into coma for a few weeks.

The incident made us realize that a person can never fully control their emotions. And so, a few weeks later, we performed his Artificial Magic Calculation Area (AMCA) operation. We converted the part of his brain that could feel emotions into an AMCA. As of now, the only emotion he can feel is 'Familial Love'.

Then he became Miyuki's guardian but would still go on the occasional missions given to him. When not on a mission, he needed to be near Miya so that she can watch over his magic at all times, and because he thought his imouto was cute. Isn't that so sweet?

On his missions, he came to be known across the world as The Maheshwara, The Silver Dragon, Ghost, Nightbringer, Nightshade, Pheonix, Fire Star, The Devil, The Angel of Destruction and a few more. He got so many names by changing the way he uses his two combat magics.

Anyway, everything was going on fine until Okinawa, where the military got to know about decomposition. He ended up joining 101 Independent Magic-Equipped Battalion as special officer Ooguro Ryuuya, Japan's second Strategic class magician."

After hearing Tatsuya's life story, everyone could only look on in shock, trying to break the magic which was holding their jaws wide open.

Katsushige asked her a question as soon as he was able to get his jaw working once again, "Forgive me if I am being rude Toushu-sama, but won't having him in an organization which is against a power structure like the 10 MC when he would be declared as the clan heir of the Yotsuba would be bad for us as it's members?"

Tatsuya, who had been silent this whole meeting, answered him, "It's been taken care of. I resigned from there last week. They can still call upon my help when needed, but it would be them asking the Yotsuba for help officially, not commanding it's officer."

Everyone took a moment to digest the information they had all just learned. It was like a Dream come true. God had gifted them an ultimate weapon, the match of which could not be found, in the form of their clan heir, Yotsuba Tatsuya.

"And then, the final news. Tatsuya, our next family head, welcomes on this occasion, my niece, Shiba Miyuki as his fiancée."

Everyone started to clap in excitement. It was not everyday so much good news could be received by the clan who worked in the darkness, never to be congratulated for their efforts in keeping the country safe.

"Let's leave the congratulating process for another time. This New Year's Meeting isn't the place to do such a formal matter after all."

Laughter of agreement arose from the assembly. Tatsuya gazed upon the crowd and saw blushing faces in the men from the assembly. Tatsuya realized with a little astonishment that people are out here drinking after all.

"Toushu-sama, may I ask a question?" asked Fumiya, while Ayako, who was sitting on his side, was trying her hardest not to cry. She loved Tatsuya with all her heart. She knew that she stood no chance in front of Miyuki, but one can always hope. But Tatsuya had brutally crushed that hope to little pieces when Maya had announced that he was now engaged to Miyuki.

"What is it Fumiya-kun?"

"With such incredible powers, won't the Magic Association step in? The government forced the first few magicians they found to have multiple wives, first modern magic engineers to create more and more destructive magic, when the magic association came, they stopped this but imposed several restrictions on the magicians. If they decide to step in then we will have no choice but to follow it or risk a war against the world.

"If they do, then we will follow, but I hope that they won't. Taking away his emotions had an adverse effect on him, you see. The amount of energy a person's brain spends on emotions, is being spent only on his love for his family. Choosing one over the other hurts him a lot, almost physically. It came down to whom he loved the most. In the end, it came down to whom he loved the most. If he has to choose once again, or if he has to be with someone he doesn't care about, then he might once again lose control of his magic. And this time I won't be able to control him, as he has long surpassed me."

Hearing this made Ayako calm down. _'_ _I have a chance'_ she thought, _'I must make him see how much I love him. Then maybe he would leave Miyuki and we can be together. Or maybe I can get him to start his own harem. It would make his pain go away, and then I would be able to enjoy with all those girls.'_ It was only years of training in spying and infiltration missions, that she was able to suppress the blush and nosebleed. But nothing can escape the trained eye of one Yotsuba Maya, who caught the perverse glint in her eyes.

 _'I wonder how this will play out for Tatsuya...oh what do I care. I am getting lots of grandkids to spoil either way.'_

Unown to either, there was another person sitting at the very edge of the hall, having the same thoughts as Ayako.

"When are we going to reveal Tatsuya-san's position as the Yotsuba clan heir and his magic?" asked Kuroba Mitsugu (Ayako and Fumiya's Father).

"I have already taken care of Tatsuya's Identity. He is now permitted free use of his magic, otherwise, the truth about his magic would be revealed in this year's 9SC. Ahhh...I just remembered, The 9SC is doing a special anniversary kind of setting this time. All the events would be open for both genders and they would be doing all the events of the last two years. Mirage Bat, Monolith Code, Speed Shooting, Ice Pillar Break, Crowd Ball, Battle Board, Rower and Gunner, Shield Down and Steeplechase Cross-Country, all of them will have a normal version like all the previous years, and then there would be a unisex version where both the males and the females would be allowed entry, and there is an additional event of Battle Royale where even graduated students are allowed to compete so that the high school students can benefit from their experience. Tatsuya I want you to take part in all the events you think you can win and show the world that the Yotsuba should not be trifled with."

"Hai Okaa-sama" was the only reply she got.

"Oh, and I have made arrangements for you to show your ESCAPEES to the world. _You_ will be making the announcements and sow the world that you are Taurus Silver. Be ready with that as the announcement would be made as soon as you enter your third year. You won't be able to take part in the Engineering team because of it so just make up for it by training someone else in it and already making the programmes. I expect a lot from you Tatsuya, especially since we would be removing your limiter permanently, tomorrow. You should practice with your **Astral Projection** for a bit. You haven't used it in over 10 years afterall."

"Hai Okaa-sama"

The rest of the gathering was spent exchanging pleasantries and Tatsuya showing them his Baryon Lance. The next day, Touka Tsukuba removed her special Mental Interference Magic, Pledge, which prevented Tatsuya from accessing his full potential. He spent the whole week in the underground training ground which had been prepared for him practicing his **Astral Projection**.

* * *

 **-)]X[(-**

* * *

AN: Should I swap Mayumi and Suzune's place in the Pairings?

Sorry for the slow updates, I am in class 12th and my exams are coming up. Add to it the fact that my Mark are pretty poor, so i hardly get time to even check my Whatsapp nowadays. Will try to give faster updates when I enter Univ.

Next chapter would be uploaded before November.


	7. Ten Master Clans Conference

**Mind was flooded with ideas of this and couldn't concentrate on my studies. Needed to flush them out of my system, so here you go.**

 **Ladies** **and Gentlemen, May I present to you**

 **A New Chapter Of**

 **Yotsuba Tatsuya: A Different Beginning**

* * *

 **Answer To Reviews:-**

* * *

 **GunBlade2018:-** Mine too bro.

 **anthony81799:-** Sorry must have accidentally typed Asuza. Was thinking about characters less touched upon when I remembered how there is literally nothing known about her except for her MI magic and shy personality. Must have typed it then. Removed her, but Shizuka would play a big role in the pairings part so can't get her out.

 **cell:-** Sorry bro, but will have to keep the pairings as it is due to popular vote. Izumi/Fumiya would be explained later on. Kokonoe's past has been changed a bit and it anyways was going to be past love (shown in flashbacks type) as Honami is dead.

 **Whoever that Guest Reviewer was on September 1(Just After Tastsuyashiva4):-** That would be explained later on (I have an explanation for that, believe it), but there are friends, then there are colleagues and a lot of other people outside the family, whom we don't consider as a family but can still show emotions for.

 **gggBuddy:-** There used to be a writer named Yagami Light-85(or something like that, can't remember the exact name) whose story was going to have a bigger harem. He had already added Angelina Sirius, Kitayama Shizuku, Mitsui Honoka, Kuroba Ayako, Mayumi and Miyuki into it (although the progress with last three wasn't that good), and from how the story was going, he might even have added Mibu (the 2-E student who meets him in the cafe in enrollment arc), and maybe Izumi and Kasumi too, but his account was deleted.

* * *

 **Note:-** Maya's role as one of the main characters is due to the flashback scenes I am planning on having every few chapters or so. And if an event goes exactly like canon, then I would only be writing brief descriptions of them. If someone hasn't read the translations of those chapters, then P.M. me. I can send a link for the same.

* * *

 **Pairings:**

Yotsuba Tatsuya/Shiba Miyuki/Saegusa Mayumi/Mitsui Honoka/Kuroba Ayako/Fujibayashi Kyouko/Angelina Kodou Shields Sirius/Kitayama Shizuku/Tsukuba Yuuka **(Removed Asuza)**

Kuroba Fumiya/Saegusa Izumi (know that this pairing was a surprise for many people but you will see how it works out)

Saijou Leonhard/Chiba Erika (will focus on it during the 9SC)

Yoshida Mikihiko/Shibata Mizuki (will focus on it around the 9SC)

Chiba Naotsugu/Watanabe Mari (won't be focussing a lot on this pairing as canon has pretty much solidified it till now)

Jumonji Katsuto/Ichihara Suzune (around the announcement of project Dione)

Ushiyama(Mr. Taurus)/Ono Haruka(won't be focussing a lot on this pairing)

Kudou Minoru/Sakura Minami

Ichijou Masaki/Isshiki Airi (will start a bit before 9SC arc)

Kichijouji Shinkurou/Ichijou Akane (will start a bit before 9SC)

Shippou Takuma/Saegusa Kasumi (9SC)

Kokonoe Yakumo/Sakura Honami(would be more like flashback type as Honami is dead and Yakumo is a priest)

* * *

 **-)]X[(-**

* * *

 **Master Clans Conference**

* * *

Tatsuya and Miyuki then spent the time between the start of the school till the 10 MC conference in relative peace, taking as much advantage of their incognito status as they could. According to Maya's plan, that was going to be the time to reveal Tatsuya. Tatsuya and Miyuki had to remove their engagement rings in public places, but they always kept them near themselves, almost as if their life depended on it.

They had broken the news that they were not actual siblings to their friends, who were actually rather accepting about it, saying things like 'would have been weird if actual siblings acted like that'. Miyuki, who only then realized just how obvious she used to be, started to blush like mad on hearing it.

The time they spent inside the house was full of constant physical contact with each other, pecks on the cheeks and one or two chaste kisses on the lips. They could not move any further as one of them would always notice Minami on the side with a full body blush due to their acts(Tatsuya had even caught her with nosebleeds when she wasn't around them, but who was he to judge her for becoming a pervert? Even a saint would become a pervert if he saw Miyuki even once, Yakumo and his disciples were proof enough of that). They had never moved past the chaste kiss stage. Except for the full-on makeout session they had after Tatsuya had proposed her. Tatsuya had let down his guard and become completely relaxed in the arms of his lover. And that scared him more than ever. What if someone was to attack during the time his guard was down? They may be able to hurt his loved ones. And if that happened, then he wasn't too sure he would be able to keep control over his magic, especially now that his magic was no longer under lock and keys. So he had explained it to Miyuki, who seemed disappointed but accepted saying, 'Anything for my onii-sama'.

That was another thing he had asked her. He had asked her to call him Tatsuya-kun when in private for now so that she could easily do so after their identities were revealed.

Things had been working out well for the new couple. Well except for Mari's attempt at getting Tatsuya and Mayumi together. That had gone pretty bad.

* * *

 **Flashback** (Upcoming part mostly canon, so you can skip till the next bold **'why'** in the conversation if you want)

* * *

It was 14 January, and Mari had called Tatsuya to meet her up at the cafe near the National Defence Academy's Auxillary Building. To make it brief, the Special War Skill Research Department is a course with a curriculum for Magicians focused on research and also training for combat Magicians. They conduct a lot of joint research and also have a second building near the Magic University. The Special War Skill Research Department's students have been exempted from a dormitory lifestyle. Even so, Mari made the location for their appointment to be near the school building due to military drills they have on Sunday. Tatsuya arrived 5 minutes before the meeting time. Then at 5:59 P.M., he saw Mari's figure. "Hey, sorry to make you wait. It's been a while Tatsuya-kun."

"Yes, it has." Under the coat, Mari was wearing plain clothes. Her pants-suit combo wasn't rare in the university, nor in government or company offices. Chances are that she got it from the National Defense Academy, and it was a uniform. "I rented a room in this area." Mari gave an explanation when she noticed Tatsuya gazing at her clothing. It seems she picked this place not because of being near the school, but rather that it was conveniently close to her place.

"That's right, we also had a drill today too… I feel bad for calling you out at this hour."

"Let's ignore that for now. What's your business with me?" Tatsuya wasn't trying to push Mari away. Just like she had said, it was quite late for a man and woman to be meeting. Since they were close to the National Defense Academy, it wasn't a strange sight to see students visiting this place… but to avoid misunderstandings, they decided to finish their matters quickly.

"That's right. We both have classes tomorrow, so let's save the idle chatter for next time." After stating her piece, she ordered a hot coffee from the terminal on top of the shop's desk. "But I'd rather not leave with just having water. Please wait a little bit." Just as Mari said, she didn't say anything until her drink arrived. She was planning her words during the lull. By happenstance, the shop wasn't an 'old school' shop. It didn't even take a minute from ordering for the completion ring to sound out. Mari came back from the counter and sat in front of Tatsuya, suddenly moving her face close to his.

"Tatsuya, what do you think about Mayumi?", she whispered.

"I think she's a great Magician. She has talent, and also experience. As for her life and stature, she can separate them well. I have a good impression of her because of that." In spite of that sudden question, Tatsuya answered it without any hesitation.

"…You know, I hate that part of you." Mari glared at Tatsuya with an annoyed expression. She could tell that he knew what she was getting at, even if he put on a face feigning ignorance.

"Why do you want to know about something like that?" Tatsuya asked with a frown, but Mari didn't answer him.

"I'm gonna ask again. What do you think of Mayumi as someone of the opposite gender? Do you like her? Do you dislike her? Please answer seriously."

"As someone of a different gender, it can't be explained in such black and white terms."

"Even so, I want to hear it." Tatsuya didn't have any obligation to answer Mari's question. With Tatsuya's current situation, answering would bring him more trouble than merit.

"I will say that I like her." But he still answered. Not because of the pressure the girl in front of him was putting out, but rather out of curiosity as to what would come next.

"As someone of the opposite sex right?"

"No."

"Wha... **Why**? She is so beautiful, smart, belongs to a wealthy family and everything else any person desires in a life partner. So why don't you like her?"

"Let me elaborate on my answer Watanabe-senpai. I am not capable of such emotions. I was involved in a magical accident when I was 5 which erased all my emotions except for my love towards Miyuki. It wasn't until 5 years ago that I was able to regain 'Familial Love', and even that was at the cost of my aunt and Miyuki's mother's life. Currently, my emotional maturity is that of a 10-year-old. I tend to stick to things I love. I like Saegusa-senpai as an older sister. Nothing more, nothing less."

"Oh...I am sorry to hear that Tatsuya-kun. I didn't know about that. Please forgive me. But what did you mean by your aunt and Miyuki's mother's life? Wasn't she your mother too?"

"No Watanabe-senpai. Miyuki is not my real sister. I was adopted by her mother so that my magic didn't run out of control. She possessed a unique Mental Interference (MI) magic which could suppress my ability to use the magic I was born with. My aunt had a MI magic called Mental Design Interference. My aunt used her magic to try to give me back my emotions but the side effects of her magic killed her before that. She was only able to restore my ability to feel love for my family. Then Miyuki's mother used her magic to suppress my Regrowth for a 24-hour period. It overheated her Magic Calculation Area (MCA), which in turn killed her."

"Your magic didn't run out of control? what harm can Regrowth cause even if it does run out of control?"

"I wasn't born with only Regrowth Watanabe-senpai. I have 3 other magic, or rather powers, which are extremely dangerous. To the point that they can be called Strategic Class ones."

Tatsuya ended his explanation to see Mari looking at him in shock.

"Watanabe-senpai. You asked me about how I feel towards Saegusa senpai. What do you plan to do with this information?"

Mari hadn't recovered from the shock she originally got from Tatsuya. Having the main subject of their meeting suddenly brought up, she shoved the thousands of questions popping up to a corner and said, "Tatsuya-kun, would you want to try going out with Mayumi?" "

"…By going out, you mean like that, right? As I said Watanabe-senpai, I like her as a sister. Nothing more, nothing less. If given a few more years, then I may develop feelings for her in that way. But as of right now, I cannot choose one girl over the other in my life as it would hurt my childish emotions, which may lead to my magic running wild. And trust me on this, you don't want my magic running wild."

"But being a magician, you would be forced to marry early. Even more so because you were able to defeat Ichijou Masaki, The Crimson Prince. You don't have time Tatsuya. Give Mayumi a chance now or it might never come again."

"I guess you are going to learn soon enough, so there won't be any harm in telling you. Can you please cast a privacy magic over the booth Watanabe-senpai?"

After Mari did as he told, Tatsuya told her everything except for things relating to the Yotsuba. From his past to his engagement with Miyuki. He even told her about his magic and the different monikers he had gained throughout the world (telling them to be missions which Mari misunderstood as missions of the military). After all that was over, Mari could only ask one thing.

"Why? Why did you keep all that a secret? If you had told that to the officials, then nobody could have stopped you from becoming a Course 1 student. Hell, you would have straightaway become the top student. Then why did you suffer the taunts of being a 'weed' when you could easily have defeated all the 'blooms in the blink of an eye?"

"I don't like to be the center of attention. I am the Ghost, one who never leaves a trail. The different names I told you I had gotten were only because I was told to keep one witness alive so as to act as a deterrent against attacks on Japan. Even then, not a single surveillance picture of me exists. All I leave behind me are body count and material casualties. It has made me a proud of my being invisible to the world. So I never wished to be seen at least until my graduation. But you guys forced me into all these activities and I ended up being recognized. I didn't need any more attention. But why were you asking me to date Saegusa-senpai?"

"She had feelings for you for these many years and was only just able to understand she was in love. Mayumi ended up falling in love with you Tatsuya. But it looks like she missed her chance huh? She would be pretty sad, but I will explain things to her so...just meet her once Tatsuya to explain the things yourself once." Mari said in a small, sad voice.

"That I will. I would contact her directly so that I can explain things to her."

"It's getting pretty late, I should get going. See you soon Tatsuya."

* * *

 **Flashback End**

* * *

And true to how he had predicted, Miyuki was feeling bad about 'stealing' him from so many other girls who had fallen in love with him. When asked what she meant by 'many', she replied that he was the only person who could not see it, but many people had fallen in love with him, including Mayumi and Honoka. Tatsuya knew that the two were in love with him as they had both either directly or indirectly told him so. Who these others that Miyuki was talking about were, he may never find out.

* * *

 **-)]X[(-**

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It was January 29, two days after the day when Angelina Kodou Shields Sirius was contacted by a member of the 'seven sages' who told her about Jiedo Heigu (Gu Jie), the leader of the terrorist organization 'Blanche', had left for Japan with various missing USNA missiles. She had wasted no time in informing Virginia Balance who had sent her and Benjamin Canopus to Japan to take care of the situation. They had arrived this very day and had wasted no time in trying to find Heigu. If he managed to detonate those bombs, then they could be traced back to them and the relationship between Japan and USNA would deteriorate, which was something which they could not afford after the parasite incident.

* * *

 **-)]X[(-**

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February 4, Monday. The day of the 10 Master Clans Conference. Also, the day when the Yotsuba would reveal the clan heir. This fact had caused quite a stir in the magical community. The Yotsuba is one of the most mysterious groups in the entire world, along with being one of the most powerful, influential and feared. Add to it the fact that for the first time in history, the regular public was allowed to view the proceedings, and you get one of the biggest crowds around all the broadcasting stations. The students of First Magic High and Magic Univ. were called to attend directly at the location of the conference, while the rest had to see from the broadcasting centers set up across Japan.

The venue was in Hakone, held in a rented conference room in a luxurious hotel. As the start of the meeting approached, the seats of the roundtable were filled. The clan heads were seated in the order of the number in their names. Like the Ichijou, Jumonji and Kodou were seated together and leaving a seat was Saegusa.

As the meeting started, it shifted towards the growth of the anti-magician movement in Japan. At this time, Maya told them what they knew about Gu Jie (him being the leader of Blanche, the GAA based terrorist organization). She also said that GAA was doing this to lower Japan's Magical forces to take it over. It spreading over to other countries was just a bonus for them. It was decided that they would inform the Government of other countries about him.

Next came Zhou Gongjin. Maya once again addressed the clan heads, saying that he had been taken care of by Shiba Tatsuya and Ichijou Masaki with assistance from Kodou Minoru, Kuroba Fumiya and Kuroba Ayako, along with officially recognizing Kuroba family as a part of Clan Yotsuba.

"Minoru-dono, which is to say, Kudou-dono's youngest son?" Makoto nodding response to Raizou's question.

"The Ichijou Family's Masaki-dono, the Yotsuba Family's Fumiya-dono and Ayako-dono, the Kudou Family's Minoru-dono, along with the person who defeated the Crimson Prince himself, even if he was holding back… how reliable." Mitsuya Gen broadly complimented.

"That's right. It really brings me joy to hear the next generation is growing up so splendidly. I can believe that the future of Japan's Magic Community is secure." Futatsugi Mai accompanied.

"Both Juumonji-dono and I feel that, even though they will only be juniors in the next generation, they are indeed reliable." Mutsuzuka Atsuko's words invited laughter from the seniors. However, the peaceful atmosphere was shattered by Maya's next words.

"Yes Shiba Tatsuya was indeed holding back a lot"

"What do you mean Yotsuba-dono?" The question was asked by Ichijou Gouki

"What I mean is that Shiba Tatsuya was using only gram demolition and then used a spell to amplify the sound created by him snapping his fingers. To think, a magician with the ability to _directly_ interact with the information body of an object using such low-level spells. He was clearly holding back"

"DIRECTLY INTERACTING WITH THE INFORMATION BODY?" Shouted Itsuwa Isami

"Yes. It is because of a power he was born with known as the Elemental Eyes, or the Eye of the Spirits. It gives him the ability to look directly into the Idea. He can read and Understand the Eidos of any substance which is directly integrated into the magic sequence in his MCA. It is the reason he cannot cast conventional spells. In casting a normal spell, a person converts the information of the desired change in the Eidos into psion waves which are then layered over the original Eidos to temporarily change the state of the Eidos. He instead directly interacts with the Eidos to permanently change the state of the Eidos. Making sure his spells don't Interact with the Eidos costs him a considerable amount of time, but also ensures that all of his magic has been calculated down to the very last detail. He doesn't waste a single psion on regular spells due to this."

"Are you sure about it Yotsuba-dono? Even you only have the ability to Indirectly Interact with the Eidos. Such an ability can have many possibilities." Koichi was almost drooling at the prospect of getting such a magician into his clan. He knew that Tatsuya was Yotsuba Miya's Son (or so he thought). If Mayumi could marry him, then he could weaken the Yotsuba and at the same time strengthen the Saegusa.

"My information comes from a reliable source"

"Do you mean the Kuroba family Yotsuba-dono?" It was already an open secret that the Kuroba family were a part of the Yotsuba and worked in Information gathering.

"I meant Yotsuba Eisaku Saegusa-dono. Whenever any child was born into our clan, he used to use his power to check their MCA of the child to see the type of magic they specialize in and any 'superpowers' they may have."

"Wait, you mean to say that the Shiba family is a part of the Yotsuba too?" asked Mutsuzuka Atsuko

"No, I never said that. Perhaps you don't know that Shiba Tatsuya is Shiba Miyuki's adopted brother. Her mother had a special magic which could stop these 'superpowers' from running wild."

"What are these superpowers you are talking about Yotsuba-dono?"

"I believe that Jumonji-dono would have heard about it during the Yokohama invasion. Would you like to explain it Jumonji-dono?"

"Regrowth. The ability to read the Eidos of any substance in its entirety and replacing it with an Eidos from its past 24 hour period. Basically, it could restore any or all damage taken by any object as long as it's before the 2-hour period, at the cost of feeling the condensed form of the pain the person went through. What I don't understand Yotsuba-dono, is the fact that what harm could it cause if it ran wild? Unless..."

"You are correct in that line of thinking Jumonji-dono. He possesses not one but four such powers. Two of which are more attack oriented, Regrowth is for medical use and the Eye of the Spirits is a support type. One of the attack magic, the access to which had been restricted until now for him, is known as Astral Projection, the ability to control Pushions to form various creatures like Ghosts, Spectrals, witches, etc. The magic which you just mentioned, Regrowth, is known among the GAA soldiers who were able to retreat during the Okinawa Invasion as the Divine Left. The ability to heal any and all damage taken by his allies."

"But... The person who possesses the Divine Left... You can't mean that he is..." asked Kudou Makoto.

"Yes. That is one of his monikers"

"What is going on? What are you talking about Kudou-dono?" Asked Futatsugi Mai.

"The only person to possess the Divine Left and the Demon's Right...is the magician, Maheshwara. The person who is said to be able to singlehandedly turn over the tides of the Okinawa Invasion and helped greatly in the Yokohama one. He is said to be able to turn any opponents to ashes with just a single flame to signify where they once were, and rumored have the ability to bring even the dead back to life. The single greatest magician greater than even the Crimson Prince in his body count during the battle of Okinawa alone. His exact body count could never be determined as there were no bodies left to count but it is estimated to be somewhere in thousands based on the number that the POW's said that had been sent."

The faces of everyone, the clan heads, and the magicians watching, went deathly pale on hearing this. Everyone knew about Shiba Tatsuya. He had made a big name for himself during the previous 9SC, beating the Ichijou clan scion and making all of the contestants under him win just because of their hard training regime, the battle plans and advance CAD software he developed. To think that he was a part of the Yotsuba clan, and also be the world renown magician Maheshwara, and to have a body count exceeding thousands before he even turned thirteen. And to then add the other facts that they had come to know about him today...Just how powerful could this person become? They all shivered at the thought.

"That is what you get when you take away a person's emotions from him." Another comment from Maya sent everyone into a frenzy once again.

"Turning a human into a weapon, a relative at that...You have gone too far this time Yotsuba-dono" Koichi said in an accusing tone, to which Maya responded in a soft voice.

"Turning him into a weapon was not my intention Saegusa-dono. But it had to be done. He reached magical maturity when he was only a few hours, and lost control of his magic and ended up killing the doctors that bore him into the world. We had to teach him how to control his emotions from as soon as he could walk so that he would not accidentally kill anyone close to him." Maya, who had her head turned away from the table during her entire dialogue, now turned to face the table, shocking everyone with her moist eyes. She then continued in the same soft voice which still remained the usual expressionless, with just a hint of sadness in it.

"Do you know how happy I was? To finally get pregnant, it was a dream come true for me. Then having to give him to Shiba Miyako when he was but a day old just because I could end up hurting him if I tried to stop him if his magic went out of control. Then five years later, receiving information that GAA was once again trying to do what they did to me, to Saegusa-dono's daughter. I thought that I could take a few members of the clan to stop it, while at the same time taking Tatsuya to have some mother-son time with him, only to have him lose control over his magic and ended up summoning an Astral Beast. And summoning an Astral Beast always has a cost, which he paid in the form of his emotions. He lost all of his emotions except his love for his adopted sister, Shiba Miyuki.

I had taken him there to be able to get to know him better but ended up causing him to feel absolutely nothing for me. It wasn't until after the Okinawa invasion, that he started to feel even the barest form of Familial Love. Miya then went behind my back and used her magic, Mental Design Interference, to connect these emotions with the memories he had, at the cost of her life. It wasn't until 5 years ago that I could even hold my son in my arms. You can't even imagine how much that can actually hurt Saegusa-dono. Please don't accuse other people until you know the truth of the matter." Maya finished with a tear rolling down her chin, once again shocking everyone. Yotsuba Maya never showed any emotions so that no one could take advantage of those.

If the content of the speech wasn't shocking enough, then the fact that Yotsuba Maya could get pregnant was. The fact that she was able to bear a child, who was an absolute monster on the battlefield was.

Atsuko and Mai could sympathize with her. They were both women who knew the joy of giving birth. Having to give up your only child when he was just born, especially when you knew that you couldn't give birth again. Then to find out that he couldn't feel anything for her anymore, to not be able to ever hold him in your arms, it must have been killing her on the inside.

Finally, Mitsuya Gen gathered up the courage to ask the question going on in everyone's mind, "Yotsuba-dono, did you just say your son? You were reported to be infertile, or was that false?" He cautiously asked, knowing that he was stepping into forbidden territory.

"Yes, I am infertile, but Otou-sama found a few of my frozen eggs the Kunlunfang Institute had kept to experiment on and use for breeding programs. He was able to send them back with Eisaku-Oji-sama. I was able to have a test tube baby with sperm taken from a sperm bank. And I found that it belonged to a pretty powerful magician." While saying this her eyes looked in a particular direction, a look missed by all except the one they were meant for. The person knew what she wanted to say but couldn't. He was startled at first by the realization that followed but managed to calm himself down before others noticed.

"All that is fine, but can you tell us more about his Demon's Right? I have seen this magic but I may never be able to understand it." Said Koichi.

"It is understandable Saegusa-dono. Nobody has ever been able to understand that magic on their own. Decomposition, also referred to as Dissolution, Disintegration and "Demon Right", is one of Tatsuya's four innate active magic abilities along with Regrowth, Astral Projection and Elemental eyes, relying on his innate talent to directly interfere with structural information. Using Decomposition, after identifying the design of any Eidos, Activation/Magic Sequence, or object, he can decompose the design. For physical objects, he can translate the physical object into signals, and then erase the base design at his leisure, breaking the inter-molecular bonds and so decomposing or disintegrating the target. For an information body (Activation/Magic Sequences), he can directly disassemble the design. Therefore, if used on a person, the parts that form the human body, including skin, flesh, nerves, body fluids, bones, and cellular structures are decomposed at a molecular level. This is one of the most difficult magic spells and part of the reason why Tatsuya was unable to freely wield Systematic-Type Magic; too much of his brain's Magic Calculation Area used to be dedicated to this ability and his other ability, Regrowth.

Tatsuya is incredibly skilled with this ability. He is able to cast his ability as a projectile, or an area of effect Decomposition magic to act as a defensive wall around him, and can focus it around portions of his body to act as a "sword," similar to the way in which Sonic Blade and Molecular Divider work. As a result, there are many "sub-types" of this spell; a few notable examples include Demon's Right or Mist Dispersion, it's real name and Gram Dispersion, the highest form of anti-magic.

His skill displays not only in the existence of various sub-species of Decomposition but also his mastery to control the scale. Besides the devastating large-scale effects, he is capable of using it to dismantle mechanical devices like arms or locks, and with the help of Fujibayashi Kyouko, he learned to be able to use it to delete electronically recorded data too.

Decomposition is not unique to Tatsuya – there are other similar but high ranked spells that involve decomposition of matter and information – but no other magician in the past or present has been able to use decomposition to the degree that Tatsuya can. He has reached the very limit of it with his Strategic class magic Material Burst, the ability to convert mass into pure energy with no radioactive leftovers. You have already seen the use of this magic thrice, during the Okinawa Invasion, during the Yokohama one and the one the world knows about, Scorched Halloween. He is Japan's unregistered Strategic class magician due to this."

"His intellect is unmatched, and he is the greatest engineer of his age.

He is the master of armed and unarmed combat. He can recover from any inflicted wound instantly by defying time.

His seemingly unlimited power makes him the ultimate weapon in technological warfare - thus the Name "Maheshwara".

Because of all these points, I, Yotsuba Maya, name my son, Yotsuba Tatsuya, as the clan heir of the Clan Yotsuba and Shiba Miyuki to be his fiancee. I would like all present to bear witness to the same."

It took some time for the others to recover from the shock they had received in this meeting, but once they did, they all agreed, although Koichi did so grudgingly. He had a plan in action about how he would have taken Tatsuya away from the Yotsuba but Maya had played her cards well. Extremely well. To show Miyuki as someone unrelated to them by using a fake name (Maya's business name, but he didn't know that) so that the matter of genetic degradation may never come up. And due to Yotsuba's secrecy, he had no proof for it too so he couldn't call her a liar.

Then she had the figurative sword of Zhou Gongjin hanging over him. He knew that she knew that he was involved. And if the topic ever came up then Jumonji Katsuto would take her side as he knew the truth. He was cornered. He couldn't try to weaken them as they could, in turn, destroy him and his clan. The only ones who could have helped him were the Kodou, and Kodou Retsu had come in during the start of the conference and confessed to the parasite doll experiments. He had said that he became delusional by the false promise that they could work as the weapons while the magicians could work on being integrated into the society. Any living thing who could feel emotion should never be used as such, he had said. He had said that he was thankful to the magician Maheshwara to have opened his eyes as to how he was going to do the same thing as the humanists by degrading a life form to a mere weapon while looking at Maya.

He should have understood then who he was talking about. As it was now, the Kodou themselves were the most likely clan to be replaced in the tomorrow's meet where the Ten Master Clans for the next four years are to be decided. He was broken from his thought by the voice of Gouki.

"Such a powerful magician, one whom I don't think I would ever be able to defeat even with the element of surprise on my side. To think that such a magician was placed in course two. Maybe we should add more parameters into how we evaluate the students. We may be missing out on a lot of potential due to this."

"Very true Ichijou-dono." Said Mutsuzuka Atsuko.

After others had finished speaking their pieces, the Yatsushiro Raizou asked one thing which had caught his attention.

"Yotsuba-dono, what do you mean that he is the greatest engineer of his age? Sure he has made quite a name for himself during the 9SC, but there are many who are greater than him. FLT's Taurus Silver would be the greatest example for this."

"Well, he had the company, but he needed a name to release his product under didn't he?" Maya asks rhetorically.

"Yotsuba-dono, are you saying that he is Taurus Silver?" Asked Mai.

"He needed someone to counter-sign his patents and other things, so as of right now, he is only Silver part of Taurus Silver. Taurus is the head of the third division of FLT, Ushiyama-san."

Mitsuya Gen, who had been quiet for some time now, spoke up, "Be as that may be Yotsuba-dono, but his magic casting speed for complex spells was found out to be extremely slow. If someone can attack him during this time, then he couldn't do anything to stop them. Wouldn't anyone more capable be given the position of clan heir?"

"Oh, that was his magic casting speed with most of his MCA, which he uses for casting Astral Projection, was locked away. He can forcibly remove This magic from standby, thus increasing his casting speed. But he can also cast magic almost instantaneously. He can use his Elemental Eyes to look at the magic sequence of any magic being cast and then store it into his memory in the form of images with the help of his photographic memory, the ability to memorize everything he ever sees. His actual casting speed is the same as the time it takes him to recall the magic sequence."

"I don't mean to sound rude or disrespectful, but it appears that you have borne a true monster into this world, Yotsuba-dono." said Gouki.

Any further discussions were stopped by the opening of the door of the room. Everyone turned around to see the object of their talks standing right there with a CAD in hand, making hem tense in preparation of an attack, even though they knew that he could have killed all of them even if they were given the time to prepare to go all out. What he said made any form of an accusation of interrupting the conference die in their throats and them to stand on with a CAD in each one of their hands.

"We are under attack."

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 **Chapter End**

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What did you guys think of this chapter? Wrote this in a hurry, so please excuse any errors. Would fix them up after the exams.

Next chapter would be the reaction of his friends, and the terrorist attack (or maybe it would be in the after that)

Please give your reviews, every writer lives by them.


	8. Reactions, Crush and Attack

**3 days of sleeplessness + over 10 cups of coffee + a bit of free time = this**

(Found out that I can write a lot more while being high on caffeine, who knew?)

(Wrote this chapter when I am in a caffeine high and have barely gotten 2-3 hours of sleep in the last 3 days, forgive me for grammatical errors)

 **(Thanks for making this story one of the top 15 stories of Mahouka, and-Holy Shit, over a 30k views, never expected it to grow this much when I first started it due to the small size of it's fans)**

 **(Found an awesome trailer for this anime, go on youtube and search Mahouka AMV-Blood and Stone)**

 **(Also, I seriously need a beta for all my stories. PM me if Interested)**

 **(Slow updates till next August as I have got to go out of station and may not get net access, so am writing a chapter for each of my stories and will get them out by mid October)**

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 **Answer To Reviews:-**

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 **TsukiBleu:-** That conflict is the whole story, the whole plot of current arc is based upon the conflict in the magic society due to Yotsuba's power.

 **AshKetchumXSerenaYvonne:-** The OOCness of characters is always certified in any AU, but you have to keep in mind the fact that Tatsuya's family feared him, directing most of their actions towards him. But in this story, his family didn't fear him, they just looked down on him due to his inability to cast magic, which changed after the meeting. So them being OOC is justified.

 **Chimera629:-** That was the point of saying that they found Miya's 'eggs' and not 'egg'. As stated before, this time Tatsuya's decomposition has not been revealed making his treatment by the rest of the family a bit better, all will be told in the flashback chapters. The shadow clan part will be resolved in a few chapters.

 **Guest who sent a review on September 8 (the review before Chimera629):-** Thanks for the review. Will try to improve my writing but may need a beta for that. Will decide that after the reviews for this chapter comes in. Thanks for the advice. And about the multiple pairings part, I started writing down all the pairings in any story I write due to the people who always keep on repeating the pairing requests in the reviews section (like the review just before yours). It is just to show them all the pairings there are in the story so that it can give way to the more useful reviews (like yours in this case). I focus on most of these pairings only during different arcs of the story (example:- Yakumo Kokonoe/Sakura Honami will be during flashback arc, Ushiyama/Haruka will be during the ESCAPEES arc, etc.), and even then only because of the fact that it can help advance story more easily and I can move the plot a bit faster(You will understand how when you read it in a few chapters).

 **Blakegriffin89:-** I only need one word to start the multiple pairings part: _**Politics**_. The Yotsuba have become too powerful. They have completely eclipsed the 10 MC. Others would now try to weaken them by using magicians to take away members of the clan. If that becomes impossible, then they would try to exert some form of control over them. And what better way to control someone who loves his family, than becoming their family.

 **GunBlade2018:-** You should really read the light novels, the attention to even the smallest scientific details (even though I can't understand a word of it on my first read, and have to read it over and over again to be able to understand what the author basically meant and wanted to imply). And then it's also addicting as hell. Read one and brain automatically says 'let's read one more', after that, 'what harm can another cause' and so on.

 **TatsuyaShiva4:-** Sorry that you felt that way. I know that my story feels a bit rushed, but I was never able to concentrate a lot on details. Guess it's just my style of writing. And no important events are going to take place till 9SC arc in my AU anyway. I am only going to add enough chapters so that the character development seems plausible, as well as to show the plans being made against the Yotsuba to either weaken them or to have enough influence to be able to manipulate them from the inside (Oops, that line can tell a lot about what is going to happen in future chapters).

 **fencer29:-** While the Maya at this point will seem only a bit like her canon self, it is only because of Tatsuya. In the canon, she had become completely insane because of what happened to her and having no one to help her out of her insanity (she pushed Miya away after accusing her of killing her), but over here, Tatsuya keeps her holding onto that last thread of sanity she has, and her relationship with Miya improved after she agreed to give birth to her son. In time she will become a lot OOC. As for believing what she said, that's why I included that last line of the chapter. And if anyone still doesn't believe her, what would be the most likely thing they would do?

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 _ **V. Imp. Note:-** The pairings which I mention are the ones which are going to be in the overall story, doesn't necessarily mean that I would focus on them. I write them down so that there is no confusion further down the line and people don't keep on sending me pairing requests. I will focus on all these pairings to get them going, but I may not focus on their developments a lot. I would pay more attention to the main pairings (the ones with no brackets next to it saying 'I won't focus on it a lot')._

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 **Pairings:**

Yotsuba Tatsuya/Shiba Miyuki/Saegusa Mayumi/Mitsui Honoka/Kuroba Ayako/Fujibayashi Kyouko/Angelina Kodou Shields Sirius/Kitayama Shizuku/Tsukuba Yuuka **(Removed Asuza)**

Kuroba Fumiya/Saegusa Izumi (Will start in this chapter)

Saijou Leonhard/Chiba Erika (will focus on it during the 9SC)

Yoshida Mikihiko/Shibata Mizuki (will focus on it around the 9SC)

Chiba Naotsugu/Watanabe Mari (won't be focusing a lot on this pairing as canon has pretty much solidified it till now)

Jumonji Katsuto/Ichihara Suzune (around the announcement of project Dione, won't focus on it a lot)

Ushiyama(Mr. Taurus)/Ono Haruka(won't be focusing a lot on this pairing before the ESCAPEES arc)

Kudou Minoru/Sakura Minami

Ichijou Masaki/Isshiki Airi (will start a bit before 9SC arc, will focus on it only during that time)

Kichijouji Shinkurou (Cardinal George)/Ichijou Akane (LOLICON, will start a bit before 9SC, won't focus on it a lot and I would be a slow going one due to Akane's age)

Shippou Takuma/Saegusa Kasumi (9SC, won't focus on it a lot)

Kokonoe Yakumo/Sakura Honami(Changed Yakumo's history a bit, would be more like flashback type as Honami is dead and Yakumo is a priest, focus will only be on when their POV is on)

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 **Reactions, Crush and Attack**

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 **1 February, 2097**

* * *

Today was the day when it was announced that the 10 MC conference was going to be aired live for all magicians in Japan to know how they worked to keep the public safety. Every person was trying to get one of the tickets so that they won't have to sit towards the end of the halls where the conference would be aired.

One Angelina Shields Sirius and her partner, Benjamin Canopus had gotten instructions to attend it as it may be the location being targeted by Gu Jie, as well as help in gathering information on the inner workings of the 10 MC. USNA may know how they work from the end results of such meets, but to know it on a firsthand basis was always better. A special screening had been arranged for them for the same purpose.

Unfortunately, since it was declared at the start of the first school period, all the tickets were sold out. It was a real breather for the Magic high and university students that they had gotten free seats. But one Tatsuya Shiba had other plans in mind for his friends.

We find Tatsuya and his entourage in the Student Council room during the recess, having been invited by Miyuki to join them for lunch, discussing this new development.

"But there has to be some ulterior motive for them to do this, right?" Asked a curious Chiba Erika in one of her rare thinking poses.

"They are doing this for two reasons Erika. First is to show all Japanese magicians the inner workings of the 10 MC so that our trust in them would increase. And the second is to show the Humanists a united front, to show them that the 10 MC is behind every single one of its magician. That they would protect every single one of its magician." Replied Tatsuya in his usual toneless voice and his poker-face on.

"Ah. So it's like that huh...Then we should meet up early so that we can get nice seats towards the front. Won't do to sit towards the back and miss most of the excitement right?" Asked Erika showing first her understanding and then the excitement she was so famous for.

"There's no need for that Erika. Onii-sama's mother sent has sent us passes so that we and our friends can sit in the VIP box." Miyuki told them all. What she didn't tell them was that the VIP box was only accessible to members of the 10 MC.

"Wait, what do you mean by Tatsuya-san's mother? Won't she be your mother too Miyuki?" asked a confused Mizuki.

Miyuki exchanged a look with Tatsuya before answering her question.

"I guess we hadn't told you, had we? Onii-sama is my adopted brother. The powers that he possessed were deemed too destructive and therefore my mother's special MI magic was used to seal his MCA. For this he needed to stay close to her, so we ended up adopting him. After Okaa-sama's death, that responsibility became mine due to my special MI magic, Cocytus. What you had seen me do in Yokohama was removing some of those seals temporarily."

"So you are adopted siblings huh? It would mean that Miyuki still has a chance with Tatsuya-san. Your competition just got tougher Honoka, now that Miyuki-san can actually get together with him. You must redouble your efforts if you want to be together with him" Said Shizuku to an increasingly red-faced Honoka. Shizuku didn't know why but the ache in her heart which came every time she talked about Tatsuya with another girl just kept on increasing in the past year. She knew what it was about, but she couldn't voice it out even in her thoughts. Both of her best friends and rivals were in love with one person, she won't get in their way. She had buried her own emotions deep under just so that her only true friends could be happy. She wouldn't dig them out if it meant hurting Miyuki and Honoka.

"It's nice that you are not actual siblings. It would have been weird if siblings acted that way." Said Leo looking strangely relieved.

Miyuki thought about what he meant and her mind eventually went back to all her interactions with her now fiancee. It was only then that she realized just how obvious she used to be. It was too much for her and she turned as red as Erika's hair. Tatsuya picked it up from here to save her any further embarrassment.

"So I wanted to ask you all if you wanted to come with me. Okaa-sama has sent enough tickets for all of us."

In the end, Erika, Leo, Mikihiko, Shizuku, Honoka and Mizuki agreed to come. Izumi, Kasumi, and Asuza had already agreed to go with Mayumi and the others.

* * *

 **February 4, 2097**

* * *

Tatsuya and group had to meet up at the broadcasting center near the hotel in Hakone where the conference would be taking place. Nobody knew that the conference was being held in the hotel just two blocks away from them. All they knew was that it was taking place nearby. Only the members of the 10MC were aware of the actual meeting place. As such, it was Tatsuya who led them over to the hotel, where there were special rooms available for the members of the MC and their guests to watch the conference.

Reaching the doors of the hotel lobby, they were stopped by a few guards. Because the conference was being aired now, therefore additional security needed to be provided. The VIP seats were located inside the hotel for that very purpose.

"Halt. Show your identification and Invitation." Called the guard who stopped them in a professional tone.

In response, Tatsuya put a hand inside his blazer, making the guard tense, but only pulled out an envelope along with his ID card. Handing them over he waited for the usual reaction that followed after seeing his family name, and he wasn't disappointed.

The guard's eyes widened and hands started trembling. It got so bad that the invitation and ID fell out of his hands. The invitation was written in English, and his friends were able to catch the first few words before Tatsuya snatched it up again. It read 'The 10 MC cordially invites Tatsuya Y-', that was all they were able to read before it was taken back by Tatsuya. They thought that it must be Tatsuya's birth name, but didn't comment on it.

They continued on to the room assigned to the VIP visitors. Before they could enter, Tatsuya had something to tell them all.

"You are going to have a lot of questions today, but please control yourselves. All will be answered in due time."

Before they could ask anything, he opened the door.

Inside was a small hall which had been converted into a theater for the duration of the two days of the conference. Every person inside turned to see the new people.

"Hey, what are you doing here? This place is for the members of the 10 MC and their guests only." Said a member of the Itsuwa Clan. They were one of the weakest in the 10 MC, only retaining their position as they had Japan's only registered Strategic Class Magician, so they were used to making others look inferior so that they could feel better.

"They are with us." Shouted out Saegusa Mayumi and Ichijou Masaki together but for different reasons. Mari was still searching for ways to break what Tatsuya told her to Mayumi so that it won't hurt her feelings. Therefore Mayumi still wanted to try and get together with him. As for Masaki, he wanted to be with Miyuki, as simple as that. In both their excitements, they forgot that only a member of the member clans was allowed to enter over here.

Tatsuya ignored them all in favor of walking towards the Kuroba twins who were quietly standing in a corner, waving at them to come over. It was an open secret that the Kuroba family was a member of the Yotsuba, so nobody stopped them when they came in.

"Good Morning Tatsuya-nii-sama" "How are you Tatsuya-nii-san?" greeted Fumiya and Ayako at the same time in a cheery voice while looking up at Tatsuya like he was their idol.

Hearing this effectively shut up every person from the room. Tatsuya's group suddenly knew what the 'Y' in his name meant.

"I am so happy, Toushu-sama finally accepted you back into the Clan. You can finally use your magic freely nii-sama." Said Fumiya, looking like he may blow up from the happiness he felt now that his nii-sama was going to be recognized by the world as the god he is, not like a second-rate magician which they saw him like right now.

"Ayako, Fumiya, meet my friends Honoka, Shizuku, Mikihiko, Mizuki, Leo, Erika, and Izumi, and Kasumi, the Saegusa Twins. You may already know Saegusa Mayumi-senpai" Tatsuya said while pointing to his friends who had all followed him all the way to the seats reserved for them. Even Masaki, George, Mayumi and her guests had followed.

"Shiba, Shiba-san, you are members of the Yotsuba?" Asked a shocked Masaki. He couldn't think his 'perfect' Miyuki doing the jobs generally given to the Yotsuba, namely, assassination and the like.

"I am a member of the Yotsuba, not Miyuki, Masaki." Masaki thought that the lack of an honorific was disrespectful, but let it drop seeing that he himself never used one with him.

"Tatsuya-nii-san and Miyuki-nee-sama are adopted siblings Ichijou-san." The one who answered the question in every person's mind (except for students of First Magic High School, even Mayumi was told that they were not real siblings by Izumi and Kasumi) was answered by Ayako.

"Is it just me or do you too think that all of Tatsuya's sisters are attracted to him? First Miyuki, and now Ayako. Is the Yotsuba into incest or something?" Asked a deceptively innocent looking Erika, but no one could deny the mischievous glint in her eyes.

"I-It's not like that Chiba-san" screamed a red-faced Ayako.

Tatsuya chuckled a bit at this. Still smiling a bit, he spoke up, "You shouldn't take her words seriously, Ayako. She's just teasing you."

Ayako looked up from the hands which she was using to cover her face, only to turn an even darker shade of red and cover her face once again. Tatsuya, who had never stopped smiling, turned around to see that the other girls of the small group were all blushing. Realizing what the problem was, he quickly set his poker-face back on, but the damage was already done.

"Now I understand why you always keep that poker-face. If you didn't, then you would have to be arrested for the mass murder of the girls of the nation via nosebleeds." Said Erika who was doing a very ice imitation of a tomato, what with her red hair and red face combo.

"So it's not their fault that they came to have a crush on Tatsuya-kun" Said Mayumi with a teasing smile. A smile seeing which everyone in the vicinity understood that he was going to be a part of Mayumi's next target.

Fortunately, any further discussion had to be stopped as the conference was about to start.

* * *

 **Mayumi's POV**

My name is Saegusa Mayumi; I am a daughter of the Saegusa Clan, one of the Ten Masters Clan. I am the former Student Council President of First High School, and I am one-third of the strongest era of said school.

I also happen to be a woman in love.

Who is the man that I love?

His name is Shiba Tatsuya.

Or Yotsuba Tatsuya, as he explained just now.

I have a duty towards my clan to increase our power and influence. For this purpose, my father, Saegusa Koichi, has been forcing me to go on dates with people who I barely know, people who never looked at me, just my body. There were exceptions, of course. The best example would be Jumonji Katsuto. The perfect example of a gentleman, always focusing on my face, getting to know the real me. But I never saw him that way, he was always the nice older brother to me. And then I met him.

It first started as just curiosity. A person who got an average of 96% in the entrance examinations, where students normally got 70%, not even Asuza or Suzune could do that.

Then when I first met him. I was searching throughout the school for this mysterious Shiba Tatsuya, a person whose entire background was classified. I knew that it was a fool's errand but I couldn't resist the temptation. When I found him sitting on the bench, I couldn't understand why he was a course two student. The power that clung so tightly to him, the tight reign he had kept on his psions, it was the sign of an experienced magician. Throughout their conversation, he managed to keep his poker-face. That was new. Even Suzune couldn't do that. That made me interested in him, and I made a mental note to keep an eye to him. And I did just that.

I got to know a lot about him even as he was walking away. The way he carried himself, was one of a war veteran. His almost emotionless voice, his dead eyes, all told me that he had killed more people than I may have ever met in my life. All these told me that he was a combat oriented magician, someone I should be cautious of, but the temptation was too big to resist. I wanted to solve the mystery that was Shiba Tatsuya.

And to test it out, I may have to challenge him to a duel. Or maybe I could get my Vice-President to do it. So I formulated a plan.

The next day, things were about to get out of control. That freshman was going to destroy my plan if everybody knew about his powers, so, I intervened. And I am glad I did. Seeing him standing up to Mari for the sake of his friends and people he didn't even know, It just increased my curiosity.

The day after that, after Suzune's explanation on how he defeated Hattori in less than 5 seconds, it was only then that I got the proof I so desperately needed to change the course two system. They were not being measured correctly!

My curiosity only kept on rising as I saw him in the 9SC. Every participant he helped, either by adjusting their CAD, making battle plans for them or by creating their training regime, won by an overwhelming margin. They utterly destroyed their competition. And then came his Monolith Code. He and the team he hand-picked kept on winning matches against the very best the other schools had to offer. And he only used the very basic spells. Spells so simple that I could have used them when I was only 7. And using these spells and Gram Demolition, he defeated the Crimson Prince, Ichijou Masaki. It wasn't until the Yokohama incident that I knew why he had to keep his abilities hidden.

And I had to say, I was impressed.

I wasn't able to get him out of my mind after that. No matter what I did, whom I met, I would always keep on thinking, 'How would he have done this' or 'He has better looks'. It got to the point where Kasumi heard me when I accidentally spoke it out loud and then began to think that the person must be a jerk to not have already asked her nee-chan out already. That was the reason why she attacked Tatsuya on her first day in high school.

Even in university, I couldn't stop myself from thinking about him. I had to eventually take the help of her senpai, the person who had groomed me to be her successor just like I had Miyuki, so I went to one Tsukuba Yuuka **(AN:Yup, Yuuka's only 4 years older than Tatsuya in this, and she used to be the student council president)**. She was the one who told me that I was in love. Then I wanted to do anything possible to stay with him, but I knew it would be difficult. I thought that he was an extra with the number '4' in his name, therefore my father would protest any relationship with him, but I thought that I could convince him in the end by telling about his abilities.

But to know that he was a member of Yotsuba, I knew that Otou-sama would do anything in his power to weaken the Yotsuba and hearing about his abilities made me smile a bit. 'He would be begging me to marry him now' I thought.

But to know that he was the son of Yotsuba Maya, the heir to the Yotsuba and engaged to Miyuki, all these facts broke my heart. There was no way now that he was going to marry me off to him. It would increase their power. The Yotsuba had already eclipsed the 10 MC completely, he wouldn't risk handing them more power

'I won't be able to be with him' I kept on thinking while a few tears left my eyes. I could feel my sister's hands on my back, trying to calm me down, but there was no way I could calm down now. How do they expect me to calm down when the person I love is no longer in my reach. I got up and went to the washroom to hide my tears from the others sitting there.

I never saw Izumi following me.

* * *

 **Honoka's POV**

My name is Mitsui Honoka, I am a Light Element magician.

Elements were some of the first magicians to be created in labs. There were 5 types of elements. Light, Earth, Fire, Water, and Lightning. We were deemed too powerful and so our genes were modified so that each one of us would become dependent on someone and won't be able to live without them.

I am an element who has become dependent on someone.

That someone is Yotsuba Tatsuya.

But I know that I may never be able to get him.

I am normal person, or as normal a magician today could be.

I am not that beautiful and my figure is average at best.

The only thing noteworthy about me is my magical abilities and talents.

For as long as I could remember, only my best friend, Shizuku, was able to match me when it comes to anything related to magic.

Shizuku and I were close friends and rivals since elementary school. Until middle school, I saw Shizuku as my best friend and strongest opponent and vice-versa, I think.

Even in our cohort and circle of friends, no one could match us in terms of magical talent.

Upon entering high school and receiving official magic training, both Shizuku and I yearned to meet someone other than each other who could push us to our limits. Yet, somewhere in the depths of our hearts, there was a stubborn belief that could not be eradicated told that told us that we would never meet someone who mirrored our talents.

After all, nobody could touch us during our elementary and middle school days, what are the odds that it would change during our high school days.

In the same school, in the same tutoring class, there were no children from the Ten Master Clans, but several children from the "Numbers System". Still, none of them were worthy of being a new rival.

However, upon entering the high school entrance examination, our conceit was thoroughly annihilated.

By the divinely crafted young lady that goes by the name Shiba Miyuki.

Shiba Miyuki, that girl is made by the Gods themselves. She is the most perfect being that I ever laid my eyes upon.

Beauty that could shame Goddesses.

Body crafted from the finest marble.

And magic that would make jealousy itself look ridiculous.

Shiba Miyuki possesses all of those.

And the way she carries herself is something to be admired.

Miyuki, regardless of how magnificent she is, she is still humble and tries her best to further herself. She is a graceful woman with manners and etiquette befitting that of a noble. In fact, I would go so far as to say that Shiba Miyuki is the epitome of an aristocrat. She's a genteel woman.

The way she moves, the way she looks, the clothing that she wears and how she wears it, the way she looks at her surroundings, the expression on her face as she interacts with those around her, everything she does just screams elegance and grace.

Because of her openness, innocence and modesty, coupled with her lovely, beautiful appearance makes her popular not just among male freshmen students of their school, but also among females and upperclassmen.

Her aura is calm, peaceful, and soothing yet there is always power in her aura that made others hesitates to even be near her.

And need I mention that she looks like a fictional Goddess.

Shiba Miyuki is in a league of her own.

And I could not help but admire her because of her flawlessness.

But she was not the one who caught my eye. No, it was her brother, Shiba Tatsuya.

I was in their batch during the entrance exams and saw him casting magic. Being a Light Element, I was able to see the amount of wasted psions in a person's spell due to their interactions with photons. But his magic had not a single drop of wasted psions present in them. To have such godly control over one's magic, to be able to calculate it down to its very last detail, that was what made me interested in him.

Then after the second day at High School, when he defended me from the head of the public morals committee, I felt something inside her. I would describe it as a weird feeling in my heart. I didn't know why but I wanted to stay close to this person, as if staying close to him would solve all my problems.

When asking a question while heading towards the station, I referred to him as Tatsuya-kun. I don't know why I did that but it just felt natural, and I liked the way his name rolled off my lips, so I started calling him that.

As I was integrated into his group of friends, slowly but surely I began falling for him. He was extremely handsome, but hid it behind his poker-face. That was definitely a plus for me.

Then when I saw him working on CAD's during the 9SC, when I saw him fight in the Monolith code, I knew that I had fallen in love with him. And therefore, I told him my feelings during the vacations. But he crushed my heart by telling me that he can't feel any 'besides oneself' emotions. I could see the pain he felt over not having emotions in his eyes. So I decided to find a cure for him, to give him back his emotions. It was the only thing I could give him anyway.

Hearing that he was a member of the Yotsuba, the son of Yotsuba Maya no less, had no effect on me. Even the godly nature of his magic didn't phase me in the slightest. It didn't matter who's son he was, I loved him and that was a fact.

But when it was said that he was engaged to Shiba Miyuki, it broke my heart into a million pieces. I had been going on for the last year and a half on the dream that I could be together with Tatsuya one day. As that dream shattered, so did I.

I was unable to keep the control over myself that Mayumi had and openly started crying. Shizuku had to help me out of my chair and took me somewhere. I didn't know where she took me, I was too busy crying to notice. My entire world had shattered right before my eyes. I had become dependent on Tatsuya, but couldn't be together with him. I did not want to live anymore.

* * *

 **Shizuku's POV** (This was a pain in the ass to write, she really doesn't show any emotions, so writing how she would think becomes difficult)

I go by the name of Kitayama Shizuku.

For those who know me, I am just Shizuku, their aloof friend that has a somewhat permanent poker-face, but to those who don't know me, they will merely recognize me because of the name Kitayama.

The Kitayama was not affiliated with the Ten Master Clans. The only reason why people will recognize that name is because my family owns many businesses throughout the country.

According to the stock market, my family controls at least twenty percent of Japan's economy.

In other words, I'm rich, rich enough to not work a day of my life and still have enough money to buy anything I desire.

My father tends to over spoil me, to spoil me rotten. He has no problem wasting money just to make me happy.

My father loves his family a lot. He buys a lot of lavish gifts for me, my brother and my mother. No matter how busy he is, he always finds time to spend with us. He is the best father anyone could wish for, except for his tendency to waste money for leisure and material things.

Even Honoka can get irritated sometimes by his casual use of money.

Mitsui Honoka, one of my only 'true' friends. You see, being rich has a huge disadvantage, you don't have many real friends. Most people just want to become your friends so that they could get a hand into your riches. Honoka was one of those few who always refused to take treats from her, always paying her share herself, even though she was an orphan and only had her monthly installments which came from the governments to fall back on. We had initially met became friends as she was the only one who could match me in magical prowess, which is a testament to her magical abilities as I had been trained by some of the best tutors of Japan from a young age, while she had done absolutely no studies in the magical topics till her junior high school. Still, even after having a lot of tutors teaching me, Honoka and I are still equal when it comes to magic. That alone speaks volume of how much talent Honoka has in magic, as well as my hard work in trying to make both my father and mother proud.

I love my parents and I admired them greatly.

You see, in today's society, marriage between a magician and non-magician is frowned upon. Female Magicians are encouraged, to the point that it is almost mandatory, to bear children that are capable of wielding magic to increase the power and prestige of the country. With that said, the society today strongly urges magicians to marry other magicians to guarantee the birth of a magic capable child. A marriage between a magician and non-magician is almost heresy because the child that would be produced in the union will have a fifty-fifty chance of being a magician. The example of that are me and my brother. I'm a magician while my brother is not.

Regardless of knowing that fact and how their peers will look at them, they still fought tenaciously for their relationship, and I could not help but admire and applaud them for it.

That is the reason why I must be a great magician. I cannot fail so that those who frowned upon the union of my father and mother would shut up.

That is why I work hard so that I could keep up with magicians that have two magically attuned parents.

And as my days in junior high pass by, my hard work pays off as only Honoka can rival me in terms of magical prowess. In our school, and even in our circle of acquaintances, nobody is a match against us that it became boring.

Oh well, at least Honoka would still push me to my limits.

That thought followed me all the way to high school, the place where Honoka and I will receive proper magic training. I thought to myself, I was assured that either Honoka or I would top the entrance exam considering how skilled we were in magic.

That thought was crushed by a boulder the size of Japan. A boulder which was in the form of one Shiba Miyuki. The difference between the practical scores of her and the person in second place, me, was so big that it should have been impossible. But Honoka had become interested in another individual, Miyuki's brother, Shiba Tatsuya. The things she said about his magic should have been impossible too, I had thought. But it seemed that the Shiba siblings existed to defy reality, that was the general consensus of everyone in our small group.

It wasn't until the 9SC that I started talking to him more than necessary, and I immediately recognized what Honoka and Miyuki saw in him. The way he could understand and break down complex things and explain them in a way which was easy to understand for anyone, it showed his high intelligence. His CAD engineering skills, to be able to compress complex spells into smallest possible activation sequences showed his unreal IQ. And the way he used his magic. I had requested my father to record his match using a special film which can capture the photons reacting to psions due to the special energy they release. Watching him use magic was like watching a artist painting a masterpiece. The way he manipulates his psion, the way he invoked his magic, the way he cast his spells, they can't be explained in human terms.

But that is not all; watching him fight is like watching a meteor shower on a dark night after seeing the sunset on the beach.

The way he fights is nothing short of magnificent.

The way he fights is like watching a dance and a game of chess at the same time. He analyzed his opponents, their strength and their weaknesses, and then takes them down, as quick, as effortless, and as clean as possible. The way he moves his body when he moves was something beyond a human being, it still baffled me how a person could move that quick with just pure physical ability, with no aide from magic.

But that one thing that truly left me numb and stunned in awe was the way he used his spells against his enemies. With just basic spells, spells so basic that even a novice can perform them, he was able to best every rival thrown at him with minimal effort, and one of those rivals was the heir of Ichijou family, a direct descendant of the Ten Master Clans. He wielded such basic spells to such degree that he was able to turn those mundane and weak spells into something to be reckoned with.

I then had the chance of getting to dance with this enigma multiple times during the after party. It was then that I realized that I had developed feelings for Tatsuya-san.

I thought of it to be some childish crush, something that would go away with time, so I buried my emotions to be able to help Honoka to get Tatsuya, willing the pain in my chest to go away the entire while.

It never did. And as I continue my friendship with Tatsuya-san, I could not help but be attracted to him even more.

There was something about him that attracted me to him, something which was in plain sight but I couldn't place it.

My question was answered a few months later when I saw Miyuki release his true power.

A violent array of photons, enough to sear the eyes, burst from Tatsuya-san's body. These were no photons, but psions wrapped in physical light. Staggeringly active psions coursed around him, spiraling around him like a dazzling display of light.

The huge amount of psion that surge through his body, the power that I felt when Miyuki released her brother's shackles, and the aura that is so close to divine that Tatsuya-san emitted as he walked to the battlefield made me realize why I am so attracted to him.

I am rich; I am used to getting everything I want in a snap of a finger. I might have been aggravated because of this, but I had grown accustomed in having everything I want.

But Tatsuya-san, he is special. I want to have him, but he is unattainable. I don't know the nature of Tatsuya-san's power, but it seems strong enough for him to be a member of the military. And according to Miyuki, the power that he has at his disposal can be considered close to that of a God.

And as far as I know, no mortal can have a God all to herself; regardless of how rich you are or how much money you have in your pocket.

Still, I want to have him. I want to hug him. I want to kiss him. I want to love him. And I want him to love me back. I want to be his lover.

And it scared me. It scared me a lot.

I still consider Honoka as the twin sister I never had and Miyuki as my best friend. I don't want to take Tatsuya away from them.

And therefore, I accepted the foreign exchange program that came from USNA to calm my feelings down a bit.

But even over there, the thoughts of Tatsuya would never leave me alone. So I decided to give it another year for Honoka before I made a move on him. One whole year I would bury my motions even deeper and limit my interactions with him to a minimum.

And now here I am, a month before the end of the school year.

I had thought that his magic was close to that of a god. I was so wrong. The magic he wields can put even gods to shame. He is something else. A transcendent

I had thought that I would be happy when I got to know that one of my friends was now in a relationship. Instead, I feel an intense pain. I almost cry out loud due to it, but managed to hold it in.

I heard sobbing sounds from my side and turned around only to see Honoka crying. Oh, I almost forgot. She was an Element, and she had 'imprinted' on Tatsuya-san. It must be much harder on her than it was for me.

So, thinking that it would do us both good that we were not here if anymore heartbreaking news was delivered, I took hold of her shoulders and guided her towards the washroom.

* * *

 **Angelina's POV** (don't know enough about her past to write her history, so it's going to be shorter)

My name is Angelina Kudou Shield Sirius. I am one of the 13 Apostles, the Strategic Class Magicians officially recognized by their governments.

To my friends, I am just Lina.

An year ago I came to Japan to investigate one Shiba Tatsuya in relation to the Scorched Halloween, to see if he was the Strategic Class Magician responsible for this, and also to execute the deserters from STARS.

That was the year that I fell in love with him.

Every single interaction with him made him seem as nothing but an ordinary student. An ordinary student with an extraordinary brain. His brilliance was so high that at one point I considered whether he had traded his MCA for IQ. But that thought was squashed when he defeated me. He defeated me due to the element of surprise, I didn't know that he still had his arm, but I still considered that a loss. That got me interested in him more than ever. I started to go through every file on him, tried to get as much information about him as possible. And as time went on, I found myself falling for him.

That is why I was searching for chances to be able to go back to Japan. To be able to meet him. To talk to him more. To hear how he breaks down even the most complex things down so that others can understand.

And I finally got that chance thanks to Jiedo Heigo. I was planning on taking his help, just to be able to stay close to him, even if his sister would be there too, I didn't mind, as long as I could stay with him. And honestly, his sister too was beautiful beyond belief. I wouldn't mind having a three...No, mind out of the gutter Lina. Mind out of the gutter.

But now I have lost my chance. He is now engaged to his not-sister Shiba Miyuki.

But if something was to go wrong on this mission, if Japan were able to trace the bombs back to USNA, then the relationships would get strained between the two. We would need to show some sort of compromise to strengthen the relations between us. Compromise like an arranged marriage.

An arranged marriage between their Strategic Class Magicians.

Even if he was already engaged with Miyuki, on the basis of his godly powers, the government would force him to spread his genes as much as possible. And so would the other clans in order o get a member inside the Yotsuba, in order to have some form of leverage against them. It wouldn't be for the first time, all the magicians with extreme magical abilities were encouraged to do so. It hadn't happened for the past 40 years or so, but there was a part in the law-books about it.

So, Lina came up with a plan even as she was busy crying her heart out in the arms of her father figure, Benjamin, as he consoled me.

* * *

 **General POV**

Erika couldn't believe her ears. She knew that Tatsuya was a part of the Yotsuba, the conversation she had with him during the parasite incidents had confirmed that. But to hear that one of her best friends was the son of Yotsuba Maya, the Demon Lady of Far East, was something she never expected. But that wasn't what surprised her the most, it was Tatsuya's magic. She had been around Mikihiko's family enough to hear them talk about Astral Beasts. It was formed by crystallizing spirit particles (pushions). That in itself was a feat which required several magicians, and even then, it may take somewhere between weeks to months to summon a creature as powerful as an Astral Body depending upon the caliber of the mage. An Astral Beast was thrice as powers as an Astral Body and many times more difficult to create. And Tatsuya was able to summon one when his magic just got out of control. Just what was he?

Meanwhile, Mikihiko and Mizuki were having the same thoughts. Mizuki had started studying ancient magic during the first 9SC so that she could help her friends more with what her eyes could see. On the other hand, Kasumi was feeling ashamed of herself. She had first thought of him as a pervert on her first day in high school and then thought of him as a jerk for not asking her sister out when it was so obvious that she was in love with him. But to think that he couldn't feel any emotions towards her. That must be the reason why he tried to keep his distance from her. He didn't want to hurt her. Didn't want to give her hope only to snatch it away later.

Leo...Well he was Leo.

"Wow, bro your magic is amazing. To think that I was around you for so long but still didn't know" Leo said with a huge smile. Many may think that he didn't understand the seriousness of the situation, but it was the opposite. He could feel the tension in the air and was trying to better everyone's mood. Unfortunately it was too late for Mayumi, Honoka and Shizuku, who had already left, along with Izumi who had gone to see if her sister was fine.

"Where did Izumi, Onee-chan, Honoka-senpai and Shizuku-senpai go? They were here just moments ago." Asked Kasumi in a worried tone. As others began looking around, Fumiya answered them.

"They went outside after the announcement of Miyuki-nee-sama as Tatsuya-nii-sama's fiance. I will go look for them." As he said this, he got up and started moving towards the door.

He already knew that they had gone to the washroom to get some more privacy. Yuuka-nee-san had told them that Mayumi-senpai was in love with Tatsuya-nii-sama, and it was pretty easy to figure out that Honoka was too. And seeing the way that Shizuku was carrying herself, as if she was in intense pain, he was sure that she was too. And that beautiful girl, Izumi was her name, had gone out after Mayumi to see if she was fine.

The entire place was quiet, strangely so.

Almost like the calm before the storm.

Unconsciously, he brought his CAD closer and put his innate magic, 'Direct Pain' to standby.

As he got closer to the ladies washroom, he began hearing the sounds of someone crying, but dismissed as them only being sad about Tatsuya's engagement. It wasn't until he reached the door of the washroom that he heard the sounds of shouting.

Male voices.

Trying to dispel the premonition he was getting, he reached out his hand to open the door. But before he could do so, he heard the sound of running footsteps. Turning around, he almost cast his magic before seeing that it was Tatsuya. His sigh of relief was cut short as he saw the expression on his face.

Within his eyes, making mere rage seem lukewarm, burned an all consuming hellfire.

He raised his right hand, psions dancing on his palm, and cast his innate magic.

The door to the female washroom turned into mere dust on the ground.

In place of the door was a small flame. As the flame burned out, Fumiya gasped.

The sight that greeted him was one that would be etched into his memory forever.

Inside were the guards who were supposed to be at the entrance to the lobby. But that wasn't what shocked him, nor was it that was that they were holding guns. They had Antinite rings on their fingers, and they were pointed at the girls they were searching for.

As the door decomposed, all eyes turned towards him. Even before he could think about what he was doing, Fumiya activated Direct Pain. He kept it at a level where the person would be kept on the edge of consciousness. Not able to escape the pain, but not able to move either.

Their screams were heard throughout the hotel.

* * *

 **Tatsuya's POV**

I was worried about the girls. They had all left crying due to him. I felt a sense of duty to make them feel better. To tell them the reason why I had done as I had done, about the most obvious move the 10 MC, the Magic Association and the government was going to take. I couldn't stand to see the people I could feel for being sad. That was the reason I had always played along with Mayumi's teasing. So when Fumiya left to search for them, I activated my elemental eye to see how they were.

What I saw made me angry.

No, angry was too light of a word. I was furious. I hate traitors. The events of Okinawa made sure of that. And when I got to know that the guards who were stationed at the entrance of the hotel were all humanists, and what they were about to do, I couldn't control myself.

Willing a few spectrals into existence, I took off towards the washroom, barely aware of Miyuki following close behind me.

I could feel the eyes on my back as I ran across the room and down the hallway, but I didn't care. The people I love are on danger. That is all that matters.

As I was running, I saw Fumiya reaching for the door of the washroom. I knew that the door had been blocked, so I used Mist Dispersion on the it. There was no time to draw a CAD and change the spell inside it, so I flash-cast it instead.

I saw Fumiya freezing momentarily at the scene before him, but recovering quickly and casting Direct Pain on the guards. I saw them writhing about in pain.

' _Good_ ' I thought. Anybody who dares harm my loved ones deserves worse, but this would do for now.

Tatsuya may like the pain they were in, but he would never appreciate their screams. It would alert the others abut what was going on.

And just as he expected, he saw a guard on the floor below going to sound the fire alarm.

' _Must be some sort of signal_ ' I thought as I couldn't see any fire in the vicinity. I quickly disintegrated him, but I forgot to take into account the flame that would ensue. The alarm was activated regardless of my efforts. And immediately a group of people inside the lobby started to ascend the stairs.

My immediate concern should have been the clan heads, but I couldn't bring myself to care about them for the time being. ' _They will have to wait_ ' I thought.

I knew that they (the people in the lobby) were just corpses from reading their Eidos, as well as the fact that they were carrying bombs on their selves. There was no electrical signals going through their brains. They were being controlled by a foreign pushion body which was further working through psions being received through an external source. An external source which I found to be one Jiedo Heigo.

Flames erupted around my body as I summoned several ghosts, mentally willing them to slow down the progress of the undead. Looking closely, one could see an outline of blood red surrounding these flames which themselves were so dark that they seemed to suck in the light around it.

Ghosts can cause electronics (like the trigger for those bombs, effectively neutralizing them) to go haywire, but their effect wasn't limited to electronics only. They could disrupt the flow of pushions in any area due to the fact that they were made from it's crystallized form. A spectral would be better to do it on a more controlled scale, as well as disrupt the psion flow as an added bonus, but I hadn't recovered enough control over my magic after having it unlocked to control many spectrals at the same time.

Black flames erupted once again as I summoned his Avatar to guard the perimeter. my Avatar was basically a personification of my will. It was human on all aspects except for it's appearance. It's appearance showed the monster that I was.

As the flames died down, emerged a figure which would have been called majestic by many. It was an American style of dragon with hands and legs. It's body's base colour was black with linings of red throughout. It had feathers at many parts of it's body like the back of it's head to it's back, the shoulder blades, the back of it's forearms, etc. A long pointed tail and spikes at the joint of it's wings. (Don't own the picture, replace the _ with dots, and the spikes on the body of the dragon with feathers of same colour and change base colour from silver to black:- **i_pinimg_com/originals/6b/3b/37/6b3b37f12699ec54d574ac85eec2d232_jpg** )

I slowed down as I approached the washroom, putting up my hands in a non-threatening gesture as I slowly made my way towards the girls. It was their first time almost dying. Sure, they may have killed before, but it never prepared one to be on the other side of the rope. They ran towards me as soon as they saw me, clinging onto my shirt for dear life as I tried to calm them down, to tell them that they were fine, that no one would hurt them, just like my mother had done for me when I faced the same scenario. That was when I was 4.

Turning around, I saw red faced Fumiya being hugged by Izumi, who was thanking him for saving them over and over again. So little Fumiya had a crush huh...Nice blackmail material. ' _Must tell this to Ayako_ '. From the time I had dropped his mask in front of the clan, I was able to finally give in to my temptations of teasing the living hell out of my family. Katsushige could confirm that. I am a bit like Mayumi that way.

* * *

 **The following scene may seem out of character to many. I am not really good at romance scenes. Reading a few romance novels for it, but they seem just so boring)**

* * *

Talking about Mayumi, she was looking at me with an expectant gaze, almost as if asking me to explain someth...Ah, so she wanted to know. Well she deserved an explanation, the others too. So I glance behind me and call out,

"Fumiya, You never saw what is about to happen, alright" I said in a tone which demanded obedience. I had been trained to be the next clan head from the time I was born. It came to me naturally now.

At his nod, I continued in a soft tone.

"Mayumi-senpai, Honoka, Shizuku, I wish I could have explained it to you before, I really didn't want to hurt you-"

"Why would you care. You can't even feel any emotions for anyone except for your family, right? And, guess what? We are not your family. And we never will now" Said Mayumi in an extremely sad tone, looking like she may burst into tears once again.

"That is not true." I said, causing all eyes to turn towards me. But I decided to not answer the question that arose.

"What do you think the government would do now that they know about these powers of mine?" It took a few moments, but a light bulb appeared over Izumi's head.

"They would ask you to spread your genes as much as possible, meaning..." She said in a shocked voice.

"Multiple marriages, but they can't force me. I am the heir to the Yotsuba Clan, the son of the current clan head at that, I can potentially start another world war just by making my clan leave Japan. But with me, the strength of the Yotsuba has increased to such heights that we have completely eclipsed the 10MC. The other clans can't take me or Miyuki away from the clan due to our engagement, so they would try to influence us from the inside.

There are not many members of the clan known at this point of time. Only me, Fumiya, Ayako, and Minami, once they know that she is like a sister to me. Taking the Kuroba's away won't effect the clan that much, so they would try to get the most likely heir to Kuroba family, Fumiya, to marry someone from another clan so that they might influence us at some level. But even it won't be enough, so most of the clans too would try to get me to marry multiple times.

It would be the same in any country I go, so it would be best if I simply accept it. But then I would need people whom I can love right? Miyuki already knows about all this and she was the one who told me that you loved me.

I had started recovering my emotions when I was 12, but Oba-ue had tried to give them back to me when I was 8. It didn't work, but I was able to start recovering them naturally at that point of time, only they would get converted into mere information after passing a certain threshold.

It's true that I can't love. But I can be taught how to. And you were the ones who taught me how to love.

I was born a monster, I was raised as a weapon, it was only you all who made me a human.

I have ended thousands if not millions of lives, and from the lives I've ended, I regret none. Still, my ledger is soak with blood, so much that the thought of marrying a woman had escape my thoughts. I have sin, so many times that I never imagine myself holding anything fragile, much less a woman. Yet, regardless of my sins, regardless of what I have done in my life, all of you have accepted me completely, for who I am and for what I am. For that, I am grateful. I am not an emotional person. I still have trouble and problems displaying my emotions outwardly so allow me to go straight to the point. Saegusa Mayumi, Mitsui Honoka, Kitayama Shizuku, I love you and though I am undeserving of your affection, I will gladly spend my entire life loving and protecting you. Will you be mine forever?"

* * *

 **Mayumi's POV**

I know there are tears in my eyes. Tatsuya-kun always knew how to make me feel special.

Shiba Tatsuya would never be the most romantic guy in the world. He is straightforward and blunt. Still, whenever he says something anything, he means it. He has never told any lie to anyone. Sure, he may tell half truths to manipulate others, but he always told the truth nonetheless.

Some people never have to say a word to tell you how much they love you. It speaks in their eyes, and in their action towards you. Being with Tatsuya-kun made me understand that love isn't about constantly rattling some sort of love poem or constantly saying some sort of litany like a spell to make people understand your feelings.

While that might make you feel good to have someone tell you how much they love you, true love shines through actions. People can lie when they tell you how much you mean to them, but when someone lays their life for you repeatedly, what need is there for words.

So I know that he was telling the truth when he asked us to stay with him. He was telling the truth when he proposed to us.

I am aware of Miyuki standing in the doorway, shedding silent tears. Tears of joy that her 'Onii-sama' could finally be true to himself. Joy that he won't have to hurt anymore.

I am aware of Izumi watching me with a blush on her face. Maybe this whole scene was a bit too adult for the innocent little girl. Or was it because of the boy whose arms she was still in? Will have a little talk with her later.

I am aware of the joy radiating from both the girls around me. We'll have to plan a girl's day out with them to get to know everything that our Tatsuya-kun had hidden from us.

I am aware that they are all watching me as I throw my arms around his neck, pulling him own on top of me.

I am aware of his bewilderment as I crash my lips to his own. I was extremely happy that I was able to finally get a reaction from him.

I am aware of how nice his lips felt against mine. The slightly moist feel of his lips, the bitter taste of coffee still lingering on them.

I let my body run on autopilot after that, let my tongue lick his lips, asking for entrance. I could feel him opening his mouth, his appendage easily overpowering mine and exploring and memorizing every corner of my mouth. I could feel myself go weak in the knees. Could feel him supporting me with his arms around my waist.

I was extremely disappointed when he pulled back, even letting out a cute whimper in protest, but could do nothing but watch as he left me and the other girls puled him in for some action as well.

Still, I was the happy. Happier than any other person before. So happy that it should be a crime.

Two distinct THUMP's pulled me out of my thoughts. Looking over, I saw Fumiya and Izumi had fainted with their faces redder than my eyes. I couldn't help but giggle a bit at the way they were laying. Izumi was still holding Fumiya in a hug, but now their faces were on top of each other, their lips touching. Little Izumi had lost her first kiss without even knowing about it. Now where did I keep my phone...

* * *

 **Tatsuya's POV**

After discretely clicking a picture of Fumiya, I made my way towards the conference room. I still had to inform them that the hotel was under attack (even if the attackers could do as much damage as an ant now). I quickly swapped the magic spell in my CAD to increase my casting speeds for the battle I was sure was about to come.

Entering the room, I saw them all tense. Jumonji Katsuto was about to ask me why I had interrupted the meeting, but I beat him to the punch.

"We are under attack" I spoke in my usual emotionless voice.

I sent a glance at my mother as they got up with their CADs, ready to fight.

"Was it him?" She asked, in an extremely cold voice. Seems like he still made my mother as angry.

"Hai. It was as we thought, the ship which docked on the Yokohama port indeed carry Jiedo Heigo. All the attackers are corpses carrying explosives being controlled via an external pushion body, his signature magic. It appears that he was able to get a few Humanists in the guard detail around the hotel." I replied in a similar manner. He had made my mother mad, and his people had tried to kill my loved ones. That were two of the greatest sins possible for me. He was going to get no mercy from my side.

"They tried to attack Kitayama Shizuku, Saegusa Mayumi, Saegusa Izumi and Mitsui Honoka in the washroom, using Antinite rings to prevent magic, but were dealt with by Fumiya. Nobody was hurt. Unfortunately, Fumiya and Izumi fell unconscious after that due to unknown reasons and are currently being looked after by the others." I added as an afterthought.

"Puppet terrorists! Such a terrible thing they've done." Gouki clicked his tongue intensely upon seeing the suicide bombing continue.

Puppet terrorism was basically suicide bombing using humans as puppets to perform the act. Using Magic or drugs to make human dolls out of human beings, dead or alive, there were also ways to deprive someone of self-control with magic. What Gouki sensed was the former, a magic that controlled the body of a dead person. He felt slow-moving presences in the first floor's lobby, as well as the corridors of the first couple of floors, it seemed to be coming upwards (the hotel had 20 floors, the conference taking place on the top floor and the VIP seating on 18th floor). Tatsuya's magic may have slowed them down by a great deal and prevented the bombs from going off, but it couldn't completely stop these human puppets.

The Ichijou family and the Magicians of the 'One' were skilled in Magic that interfered with the flesh and body, but the magic that manipulates the movement of the body has always been forbidden. There have been examples of 'losing one's number' for those who ignored that law. That is why even if Gouki understood what exactly was happening, he didn't know how to stop this wicked thing known as Puppet Terrorism.

"It's going to be tough finding a countermeasure to the Media." Gen complained all the while loading magic which would be useful in such a situation.

"I guess we have no way of deceiving them at all." Atsuko made a comment with a tone of resignation.

"Although we have the CCTV to prove the fact that it was corpses who were holding the bombs…I think revealing this to the public would have quite the negative effect." Said an almost depressed Isami. He had one of the best brains out of all of them all, one of the reasons why the Itsuwa were still in the 10 MC, and he knew that if it came to a fight, then he would be one of the members to get no action at all.

"You need not worry about the media, I replaced the broadcast with the footage of the Okinawa battle a minute after my announcement as clan heir, and a bit before my announcement as Taurus Silver, and got a few spectrals guarding the area. I have effectively disabled the explosives with the ghosts, but any sort of magic outside it's Eidos will not effect the bombs, and their Eidos are being guarded by pushion entities, which i specialize in, so I will take care of the corpses as well. You should work on the evacuation of civilians from the premises. It will work to gain points with the Humanists." I said in my normal emotionless voice, but secretly, I was glad that the secret about me being Taurus Silver could remain like that for a bit longer.

The clan heads consider my words for a few moments, before nodding in agreement and separating to get the civilians out as quickly as possible, while Tatsuya strolled out at a casual pace towards the lobby where he knew there were more humanists present, planting bombs to kill off the 10MC, all the while using Astral Projection to control the spectrals into 'killing' the pushion body possessing the corpses, thereby releasing them into the sweet hold of death.

* * *

When he reached down, he saw a sight that would make the world happy that he couldn't feel much emotions, or god knows what may have happened to the surrounding blocks.

There were a another dozen humanists down here, thinking that those mindless bots would do the work, and were enjoying their time over here with a few women who were unfortunately caught by them in an attempt to get out. Clothes were lying all around the place, a pair of trousers near the entrance, a shirt on the floor and bits and pieces of women's clothing lay all around. Grunts of pleasure and sobs of helplessness echoed all around. They were so busy in what they were doing that none noticed his arrival.

Even though Tatsuya couldn't feel much, he still felt the anger at the scene before him. He knew that it was just based on chance that these women were captured. I knew that it could have been someone he knew. And just the thought of something like this happening to them drove him over the edge.

He didn't even bother with his CAD, and simply started walking forward. His calm stride not betraying his inner turmoil. The soft carpet muffled his footfalls so that he was soon standing behind the first of his victims with him being none-the-wiser. With a simple flick of his wrist, the head fell on top of the carpet with a dull thud, the blood still flowing out of the neck alerting the others of his presence. In a flash, they were all on their feet, their to get their pants while reaching for their weapons.

He didn't have time for this. The civilians would be evacuated soon and he had to take care of these bastards, the people they had raped and deal with the cleanup. So instead of trying to take them on in a hand-to-hand combat, he chose the other option.

He smiled.

And such a smile, the likes of which they thought could only exist in imagination. The smile was everything a smile shouldn't be. Cold, calculating and promising death to everything who ever saw it. How could a young teenager have a smile which could only be hoped to be seen on the devil himself?. Little did they know that what they were facing was worse than the devil itself. It sent a shiver of dread down the spines of everyone present making them loose focus for a few moments.

And that was all the time that Tatsuya needed.

Even though these people were not magicians, their Eidos had been covered by a spell which took the person's concentration to maintain. By scaring them, he made that concentration waver a bit allowing him to bypass the spell in it's entirety and straight away decompose their bodies, instead of decomposing the spell whose feedback would alert the caster to foul play. Now since the designated target were no more, the magic terminated itself without any feedback.

In a bright flash of light, suddenly they were no more, their hearts having vanished into thin air. He had to leave the bodies to find out whch cell as responsible for this attack.

At the same moment, he had loaded up Regrowth in his virtual MCA and cast it on the poor women who were unfortunately caught in the crossfire, giving them back their dignity. He then used the same magic on the pieces of clothes on their bodies, returning them to the state they were in before the assault.

But nothing he could do would remove the mental trauma they faced.

They were staring blankly at the wall in front of them even after he had carried them all outside and sat them down in the ambulances and told the authorities what happened. After-all, he couldn't save everyone from everything.

And that was his biggest fear.

What would happen if he failed to protect those close to him?

* * *

The day ended with a lot of discussion a lot of discussion with the authorities and the press singing praises of the magicians for going out of their way to save the civilians first before evacuating themselves.

After a talk about his future plans, the clan heads agreed to keep silent about his identity as Taurus Silver. But the ever-present glint in their eyes told him that they would try to get in his good graces after this and also try a bit harder to control the Yotsuba from the inside. It was all going according to plan.

That just him with the girls in a hotel they were staying in for the night.

Life was good.


End file.
